temp 98 F

[Soothing Shrimp]

Yepper. Came downstairs this morning to find my heater in my yellow tank went wacko. 98 F!

All yellows were huddled in the back corner. I'm guessing the wall was a tad cooler since it has another tank butted up to it.

Took the heater out and threw it away, filled some sandwich bags w/ice and have them floating.

So far, all have survived. Good thing it wasn't a card tank!

[GeToChKn]

Another reason I don't like to use heaters, they go flakey too often and things like this happen. Part of the reason I decided to keep my tanks on the 3rd floor as opposed to my basement. My basement is unfinished and no heat vent in the room I could have used, so while the summers would have been cool, the winters, I would have to use heaters in every single tank. On the 3rd floor, I'm using fans to cool them, evap sucks but I only have to deal with that for 4-5 months of the year and don't have to heat them at all and having 10 tanks with 10 heaters, odds are one would have went bad and boiled a tank of shrimp.

[Soothing Shrimp]

In this case your odds are about correct. I have 14 tanks set up with heaters, and one went bad- however it was a used heater to begin with. heh

[Rev2eight]

Which heater was this if you dont mind me asking?

[Soothing Shrimp]

200w Penn-Plax therma flow "PC"

[shrimp pliskin]

How in the world did they not boil to death at 98F?? It might have still stressed them enough that they'll have problems down the road so keep that in mind if they start acting strange.

[diwu13]

Could be that the heater was reading 98F but the actual tank water was probably less, especially since the OP said he had tanks touching one another. That would definitely help distribute the heat out.

[Jadenlea]

ugh I hope all your shrimpies will be ok

[zdnet]

I use the Ranco ETC-111000-000 controller to control cooling fan in summer and heater in winter.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Originally Posted by diwu13

Could be that the heater was reading 98F but the actual tank water was probably less, especially since the OP said he had tanks touching one another. That would definitely help distribute the heat out.

Wish that were the case. The manual thermometer I have in the aquarium displayed that as the water temp.

I've learned over time to never trust what reading a heater has on it. Without an exception, no matter what type I've tried, all heaters have had errors as to the temp set at and the real temp. So I use a simple manual therm for an accurate result.

Keep in mind, though, that the term was located 1/2 way down the tank- so while still incredibly hot, it may be possible the warm water was on the bottom while the hotter water was up above. May have been a few degrees less. (?)

[diwu13]

Must've been right? Cause 98F would definitely kill off even yellows :X

[Soothing Shrimp]

Perhaps? I really don't know because you'd think the bubbles from 2 sponge filters would mix the water pretty good.

I *did* find it surprising they survived though, because yellows have always been my most finicky neo...

[reefdive]

Maybe this will help maybe not . Shrimp can tolerate very low temperature's very well . I did not heat a single shrimp tank this winter in a basement that get cool down into the 60's and tank temps were easily 65 or less . They all kept breeding slower than at 72 but still reproduced and you could not even count the cory eggs that were laid and all mine were young . Maybe some natural variation in the temperatures is good for things ? Granted many tropical would not like this but Crays Shrimps Corys and Endler's did not mind at all . Oh and bristlenose pleco's seemed to thrive as well . I still have heaters as a backup and if you can get used Jaegers they are fantastic .

[jasonpatterson]

Originally Posted by reefdive

Shrimp can tolerate very low temperature's very well . I did not heat a single shrimp tank this winter in a basement that get cool down into the 60's and tank temps were easily 65 or less .

I think that most people assume them to be tropical rather than the temperate animals that they are. To be sure, they're not coming from the Arctic or anything, but they are not afraid of a little chilly weather. My cherry shrimp tank has been going in my basement all winter. It got down to 40F at one point and the shrimp were fine. They didn't start breeding again until just this month though, when I dropped a heater in the tank and finally got it up above 65F for more than an hour or two a day.

[ch3fb0yrdee]

I've had the same experience with the cheaper petco heaters. Now I only trust the eheim jager heaters. It's either a jager heater or no heater. I'd rather leave a tank cold in the winter and take my chances then use a heater.

Shrimps are very tolerant of lower temperatures. I've kept my Neos through the winter with no heater. No one died.