[DeanClampet]

I have recalibrated this heater twice and set it to 80 or above, trying to get the water to hold at 78. With the lights on the tank heats up to about 75-6 degrees, just above room temperature, but I've been supplementing it with a spare 100 Watt. I came from sleeping out the other morning and the water temperature was about 68 degrees. My tank is open top, should a 200 Watt Jäger have any trouble keeping it hot or is this thing defective?

 

[mistergreen]

does the light turn on if you crank up the temp?
your heater might have died.

 

[fish h20]

How cold does your house get at night? That small of a heater can only get your tank temp so far above room temp.

 

[Franzi]

Could be that the unit is messed up (which seems to be the case with Eheim/Jagers as of late), but the issue I had with this heater was user error. I thought you had to pull out that little button even when you wanted to change the temperature in the tank. I didn't know that that button was to be pulled out only when calibrating. Once I figured that out, my tank has been steady at about 82 degrees.

If that's your problem, simply calibrate like the instruction manual says but make sure you don't pull out that button when setting the temperature of the tank.

 

[wkndracer]

200w will only carry an open tank a couple degrees over room temp. Simply leaving the hinged cover 1/2 open on my tanks runs the heater more often.

 

[astex]

Something I've recently appreciated lately is heaters work a lot better when they are in the water flow so the heated water spreads and the heater has contact with more than just the immediate water area. I.e. hiding heaters behind plants only works if water flow behind plants is present as well.

 

[hbosman]

Try moving the heater near the spraybar or wherever your water flow is. What is the room temperature? If it is a 10 degrees or greater difference to the desired aquarium temperature, you may not reach it with 200 watts. I bought a 300 watt hydor inline for my 46 gallon because the temperature in the basement drops into the sixtys in the winter. It's open top as well.

 

[Franzi]

+1 on the water flow. I put mine parallel to the spraybar towards the bottom of the tank. They say not to submerge them, but you can.