How close can heaters be to other objects?

[labloverl]

I have this heater http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...1&clickid=cart for my divided tanks. There's not a lot of room between the dividers to angle it well enough to keep it far from other objects so I'm wondering if they can touch other objects or not. How far away from silk plants and the dividers themselves would they need to be?

[aokashi]

I throw my heater in. the surface doesn't get that hot. I mean a betta is usually hppy to snuggle up to the heater... so I'd say that you're good puttin it anywhere.... Not recommended to stick it into the substrate though...

[labloverl]

Thanks! Well it has the rubber buffers on the ends, so maybe that will help with touching the dividers and things.

[Bettanewbie60]

Originally Posted by labloverl

Thanks! Well it has the rubber buffers on the ends, so maybe that will help with touching the dividers and things.

Thanks for posting this question! I was wondering the same thing..I have three double divided tanks, so the heaters can go in between...cool deal.

[DragonFish]

I've never had any trouble with any fully submersible heater touching silk plants or even substrate a little, even the ones that don't have rubbery ends. Nothings burned and no ones died. xD I don't think the surface really gets all that hot, like aokashi said....if they did it probably wouldn't be safe for fish!

I would be careful with that specific heater model though. I got one when setting up one of my 5.5 gallons and once I had everything set up and going and added the fish, I noticed after a few hours my boys were acting a little strange...and no just a new-tank sort of strange. I had a really bad feeling. The water also smelled a little funky....like bad not-fishy funky. I got my boys into clean water and broke down the whole tank, rinsed everything VERY thoroughly AGAIN....and that rubbery end of the heater popped off very easily and under it was an absolutely AWFUL smelling glue substance. I trashed the heater, got an Aqueon Pro, rinsed everything AGAIN, set it all back up, added my boys, and everything went smoothly after that. I'm convinced to this day that that heater was leeching something into my tank, and I'm very glad I trusted my instincts and acted quickly before I lost my boys.
So just be careful......I might have just gotten a bad one, but I'm rather skeptical about the Top Fin heaters now...

[labloverl]

I'm glad you mentioned that glue problem! I got this heater for my 10 gallon last year. I didn't have any problems other than the funky white stuff that always seemed to grow on the rubber. One time while cleaning that, I took one rubber end off and saw that the glue was kinda messed up. I got it off as best I could, but I didn't have any problems from it. I'll need to check the one I just got for my 5 gallon though.

[sarahspins]

Small heaters generally don't get super hot the way that larger heaters could... think about it like changing a light bulb.. you could probably change a 25w bulb while it's still on without getting burned (electrical safety issues aside) but you sure wouldn't want to grab a 100w bulb.

None of my 25w heaters get anything more than "warm" feeling, and I don't think they're even capable of melting/burning anything if they were touching it. I have a 50w that gets to what I'd call "uncomfortably warm" but I wouldn't worry it could do any damage either. A 200w heater I'd probably worry about :)

[DragonFish]

That funky non-fuzzy white stuff? Thats just like a calcium buildup I believe....I get it on the time on heaters with rubber ends and the heater suction cups in my cycled tanks. xD Not very pretty to look at, but not harmful in any way as far as I know/from my experience. I just scrub it off during water changes every once in a while.
But yeah, the glue really worried me....mostly because of the horrible smell. It just really didn't seem aquarium safe. 8/ And especially because my boys were acting bizarre just HOURS after being added to the tank, I've been really put off the heaters all together.
If you're not having any problems though, thats good. And since you got the glue off that one heater that probably helped.....but yeah. Just keep an eye on them I guess.

[labloverl]

Thanks everyone! You've all eased my mind. Before I posted this, I was redecorating the tanks and made sure nothing touched the heaters lol. It looks pretty funny.

DragonFish, I'll definitely keep an eye on this new heater. As with just about any heater, they can be defective. I won't even turn it on unless it's early in the day and I can watch the temp throughout the day to be sure it's not going to cook the fish.

But yeah, I hate that white stuff. It's kinda slimey and gets in the groovers of the rubber end so that it's hard to clean it all out. It always flakes off into the tank. Can't stand it lol. :)