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I've been noticing that no matter what temperature I set the thermostat in my apartment, the temperature drops considerably at night, and even with a tank heater, Napoleon's water temperature drops several degrees as well. Will a stronger heater prevent that from happening without overheating the tank? Right now I'm using a 50W All-Glass Aquarium heater, should I just look for something with a higher wattage, or something different altogether? Based on the heater information on the water quality page, it seems like 50W should be about right for my 30 gallon tank half full. I'm looking at reviews of Marineland's Visi-Therm Stealth submersibles, and it sounds pretty reliable, do you think one of those in a 50W would perform better? Thanks for any advice, sorry to ask such a noob question.

Go for the Marineland Visi-Therm Stealth Heater.

Trust me,it wont let you down...

How big is the drop? A stronger heater wouldn't necessarily help, a more accurate one will. From my personal experience, an Ebo Jager is more accurate than the Stealth, though they have also served me very well.

If you are getting a noticeable change in temps only at night, would covering the top of the tank be an option?

If the water temp is dropping considerably at night, then your water heater isn't doing the job. With Sputnik's Terrarium, if I came downstairs for a glass of water or something and stuck my hand in his water, you could tell the water was warmer than the air temperature. To me, that shows you have a heater in good working condition.

As far as wattage goes, there's no negitives that I can think of to having a heater larger than what the aquarium "needs". To me it means the bigger heater will just be turning on and off less as well as heating up the water faster.

I also just starting using the visi-therm for my new aquarium, I think it's 250 watts, and it's working great so far.

your heater could be overworking itself. i use a neptune submersible 100w water heater and i only have 13 gallons of water right now. it's also adjustable so i can fix it if it gets too hot/cold. it stays steady at 79 degrees.

We have a Hydor Theo Heater its 100w and it works great. Our Temp stays at 79 and I have 13 gallons of water in the tank.

Here's a handy tool to help figure out what size heater you may need:

http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/tipsa ... ersize.htm

I've got a 200W stealth in my 55 gal. I just set up. It works great, but the room temps at night only drop about 5 deg. F.....

I have a 150 stealth in my 20 gallon. It works great. Very consistent with the temperature.