Help... my heater a problem or something else?

[Mark_D]

Kinda freaking out... for some reason my heater won't warm my water about 73... I got an alert from my apex telling me of the drop. The heater is still working because I turn my return off to build up the heat in my sump and it gets up to around 75 and after I turn my return back on, it goes down to around 72 and won't go higher then 73. I have a second temp gauge confirming the temp. All fish and coral still look fine, but I'm sure stuff is going to start getting angry since it's been 24 hours at that low temp.

 

[Elementalj]

Kinda freaking out... for some reason my heater won't warm my water about 73... I got an alert from my apex telling me of the drop. The heater is still working because I turn my return off to build up the heat in my sump and it gets up to around 75 and after I turn my return back on, it goes down to around 72 and won't go higher then 73. I have a second temp gauge confirming the temp. All fish and coral still look fine, but I'm sure stuff is going to start getting angry since it's been 24 hours at that low temp.

Do you have the Apex controlling the temp or just monitoring?

 

[Mark_D]

Controlling. On @ 77 off at 78

 

[TheEngineer]

The thermostats in these heaters can go bad. You don't say what type of heater, but I'm assuming it has a dial on the top? Try turning it up to the max temperature and see if it improves. If so, slowly turn it back to a temp just above where you want it. That way if your Apex gets stuck on you won't overheat your tank.

 

[Rick.45cal]

Sounds like it needs to be replaced. I'd stop at the LFS on the way home and pick up two new ones, and control both via the apex. Never hurts to have redundancy. I personally like the ones that have no thermostat on them.

 

[Mark_D]

Just got a new one.. Ill wait to get another one from a forum. Money is tight around Christmas. Thanks for the support