Tank temp swinging...

All of a sudden my 60G which is typically at about 78F with lights on I noticed was down towards 76.5F so I cranked the heater up a little bit to compensate as who knows its been hot here and the a/c as been running a lot. So I cranked the heater up a bit which ran for like two or three minutes and shutoff. So I noticed later on when lights out that the temp was down towards 76F. The heater is now at 84F and still doesnt seem to just run. That heater is a 60Watt and I just added a second smaller 25Watt to see if I can carefully/gradually get the temp back up. So two questions; safe to assume my heater which is only a few months old needs replace? Thoughts on how gradually I should increase temp? I was going to try getting back to 78F over a few hours. I noticed my condy was up towards the top of the tank looking not happy and I wonder if that was due to the temp...

 

you should be fine if you just get a stable heater in it mine does not even kick on til it reaches 78 then heats til 80 then shuts off best thing to do is get some form of a controller as well it's almost a must to insure proper temps. Never trust heaters solo

 

Over the last two hours I gradually got it up to 77.7 so I feel a little better about it. Thanks!

 

Definatley check into a controller great investment to save your tank from overheating, mine even has an alarm to notify me if the heater stops working

 

realistically the ocean tempature changes multiple degrees during the day and night, my tank runs no higher than 78 during the day and no lower than 76 during the night, i've read many articles about people naturally doing this to their tank to help get their livestock used to temp changes - my condy does well and has been in the same spot at the bottom of the tank since i purchased the hungry creepy thing

 

My tank swing from 76-79 and everything seems fine. If it's not too much of a swing it should be fine.

 

-1 Asap - this was 9 days ago lol