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I am having trouble deciding what the temperature of my tank is. The strip on the side of the tank says 76, but the floating thermometer says 74. Which one should I go with?

Justin

Colts Fan For Life
30g platy tank: 2 sunburst wag platys, 2 redtailed white calico platys, 2 red wag platys, 1 fry(not sure who it belongs to), 1 Golden CAE.
Bettas:1 VT male

The floating thermometer is much more accurate. The 'digital' stick on strips are crummy at gauging temperature of the water. These strips are influenced by the atmospheric air passing over them, and are also seperated from the water by the glass. This and most likely the strip is either on the very top of the glass or at the very bottom, either being heated by the lights or insulated by the gravel. Do yourself a favor and throw it in the trash

There really are 3 types of thermometers you can use.

A. There is the strip that you attach to the glass, which is left over from the 70's and is no that accurate.

B. There is the new digetal ones that depending where you place the probe can be very accurate. I have found they give a truer reading if you hang it in the center of the tank off of the glass top. this way it not effected by the room temps.

C. There is the floating gas thermometer which have been use from the beginning. These float and bob around the tank. These IMO are the best and are the most accurate of all of them.

The most important thing is to make sure you have a quality heater and to place it were it has good water flow around it to evenly heat the whole tank, so that you do not have hot and cool spots in the tank. Larger tank many people use two heater at both ends of the tank. There is also in line heaters that if you buy the a pump and hose you can use without a canister filter, but they are really designed for canister or wet/dry filters. Another IMPORTANT thing is to have a back-up heater with you supplies just in case the tank heater fails. It does not have to be a very expensive one but one that can tie you over until you can replace the broken one and put it back as your back-up heater.

Djrichie
"So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish" Douglas Adams

I have one of the digital thermometers where the probe goes in the tank and has a suction cup to hold it inplace.
Works terrific. I also have a floating one and that one and the digital are always the same. I dont like the stick on ones. They never seem accurate and are hard to read.

Yup I have a digital thermometer for every tank with the sensor located at the midpoint of each tank, and a strip on one end to remind me just in case the battery goes.

I too prefer the floating ones the only problem I have is sometimes they float too much and I cant find it to read the numbers. I use the ones with a suction cup to hold it in place. This also has the benefit of keeping the thermometer at one point in the water, so that the mercury is totally suspended in the water.


Something else you might want to consider is placing the thermometer on the opposite side of the tank from the heater. I find this gives you a better reading for the tank as a whole than just the water around the heater.

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I have two for each tank one floating and one strip which is stuck onto the glass. I find that the difference is only one degree.

I would go both one good reason is you can use the stick on as a level when you are removing your tankwater.

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Keith

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Thanks for all the replies, your information has been helpful!

Justin

Colts Fan For Life
30g platy tank: 2 sunburst wag platys, 2 redtailed white calico platys, 2 red wag platys, 1 fry(not sure who it belongs to), 1 Golden CAE.
Bettas:1 VT male

I had a glass thermometer give me an innacurate reading 6 degrees celsius off towards the colder side. This had terrible repercussions... The temp I was setting was 26 and the real temp was 32, it was not pretty, but thankfully no fish died.

Lesson learnt I set off to look for the perfect thermometer... It doesnt exist, at least not affordable ones. Strips are good cuz they are right there in front of you, but some wont go past the 30 celsius mark and if water is above that temp it wont register it as such. Glass thermos, even though the most antique and quite reliable ones, are also man made, im sure the mercury in them is not gonna make a mistake and rise one mm more if the temp rises one degree, but these thermos are constructed by hand and who is to say that the little paper with the numbers on it was not displaced or moved without knowledge, rendering a thermometer that has 6 degrees of error. Finally the digital ones, I thought I could trust these, but if they are not calibrated correctly they are as useless as any other, plus some brands get affected by room temp or air currents, not the probe but the screen part that registers the info coming from the probe. This happened to me with a MARINA brand digital thermometer, It varied if I held the screen too tight in the palm of my hand.

So as it was suggested before... go with two methods instead of just one for each tank, its safer.

Just my two cents developed from personal experience.

Best of luck,

James

I would go for a glass or digital thermometer, as i think they are more accurate than the glass strip.

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I love the stick-on type..... hadn't occurred that it could be wildly inaccurate. The suction cup that comes with the glass thermometer degrades and you are left with a thermometer floating about that can't be read as you pass the tank. You gotta catch it first!

Might do a comparison between the glass thermometer and the stick-on. Thanks for the head's up friends.

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