Should I heat up the tank slow or fast?

[mahi]

I haven't had a heater until now. Recently the temperature dropped and this morning it was 73 deg so I went out and bought an adjustable heater.

My question:
Should I increase the temperature slowly,( say, to 77 today and then to 80 tomorrow) or can I just set the heater to 80 deg and plug it hin?

I don't want to shock my betta, who has been on 73 for a couple of days now.

[Leeniex]

The heater will heat it up slowly, depending on it's size and the tank....so I would plug it in and turn it on.

[Myates]

Agree.. I've always just let the heater do it's thing on it's own. They are pretty well designed not to go too quickly to cause stress/shock.

[mahi]

Great! It's in now. Will pay attention to the temperature for a while, just in case.

[mahi]

So, I put the heater in and it took about 9 hours to go from 73 to 80 degrees.
This morning, the tank was at 80, but fishy was completely clamped and didn't look good. Since the only thing I changed was the temperature, I turned it back to 77. The tank is cooling down at the moment, and I hope fishy will look better once I come back home from work.

..slightly worried...