Heaters going mental

I have tried 5 separate heaters in the past 6 months. My water temp does not go below 80F with any of them. I turn the thermostat on each one all the way down and my tank just doesn't go below 80F it says between 80-82 which is fine with me, but this is messed up.

I used one thermostat to warm up my freshly mixed water, and i can set it for 70 and it will heat the water to that and stay there. Then i put the heater in my MT and Lowe and behold its backup to 80 and holding there. Ambient temp of the room is 72 degrees 24x7

I'm replacing my sucky 2 x 40 watt home depot ballasts with a 4 bulb T5 retrofit kit tonight so im a bit worried about temp fluxuations.

Any ideas?

 

my tank is going thru the same thing its summer so thats why and your mixed water doesnt have a hood on it with lights to provide heat...i simply unplugged my heater during the day and keep an eye on it during the night and make sure it doesnt drop when the lights go out. if your heat spikes too high just put ziplock bags of ice in the sump but be sure not to let the temp drop too abruptly.......one question how big is the tank

 

My heater has been off for a few days and it's around 80F. I have to put the chiller on again.

 

Fans blowing air over the sump works well.
If there's the option to take your glass lid off, that will do wonders too.

 

What kind of heater is it?

 

How much heat does your lighting put out and have you checked your thermometer to see if it is accurate. I had a thermometer that was off by 4 degrees so now I use 2 in every tank- an electronic and a standard.

 

It's a 90 gallon tank. I'm not sure how much heat my new lights put out at this point, but I'm sure its going to be more than the previous junk I had. Man they are BRIGHT too holy crap!

Anyways, I made a rig last night just to get the lights mounted sturdily and over my tank. The canopy is not on the tank yet, I took it off a couple days ago to stain it. (canopy post is in the diy forums). My house has central air so the ambient temp shouldn't be going up during the summer.

I'm not sure of the brands of heaters but i have tried multiple different brands (at least 3). I only have one thermostat, I really don't think that is the problem, but I certainly will buy another this weekend.

I lost both of my clowns due to jumping out of my tank so I won't take the glass off of it. Well, at least until my canopy is back on then I probably will (sad face)

THANKS!

 

If you're not getting a wide temperature swing from night to day. One way to tell if it's your heater or not is to just unplug the thing. If the temp still goes up, then there's something else adding heat to your tank

Jim

 

It's unbelievable how much heat you can evaporate just by adding fans. A few weeks ago we had a burst of summer weather and my tank was not ready for it. the temp went to 84. I quickly added the Summer fan and now the tank is stable back at 79.

Glass tops do more than trap heat. The lack of gas exchange on the surface can cause all sorts of problems. the surface of the water is were the majority of O2 enters the water for your fish and all the bio in the tank. Cutting that off can cause mystery deaths do to lack of O2.

J

 

I better get moving on that canopy it seems

Thanks for the input!