Fish tank heaters

[jordibird]

Thanks Oldbloke,
I'll make sure the temperature doesn't get that low, even if it means swaddling them in either a duvet or bubblewrap.
cheers
Lezli

 

[Dave Ne]

Hi Lezli, i have an old original immersion heater made for the home brew market and must be 20 years+ old. It came with a pre drilled bung with 2 holes for air lock and cable, its in use at the moment in a 5 gall brew and is factory set at 70 deg F. I have recently bought 2 more of Hong Kong's finest for the princely sum of £3-29 each @ 25 watts which will do a 5 gallon brew each with ease. Last year i had a batch of easy white take from August to February this year to tottaly finish fermenting, i put this down to our dreadful summer weather so i have tried to speed up production this year, cheers Dave NE

 

[Stu]

As someone else pointed out, 25w will of course warm it, but slooooooowly.
If your house is cold (like mine is - we don't leave the heating on during the day) then it will be on almost permanently.

I went for the whole shebang. 300w. It comes on very, very occasionally. It warms stuff up then turns off.

To be fair, they were around £6 each and I bought them from UK sellers as I couldn't be arsed to wait for the slow boat from China (we know a song about that kids).....

 

[morethanworts]

+1 for putting it in a trug around the FV. Why have another thing to immerse and risk infection? B&Q Trug £5 or so???

I read someone saying they put their FV in a water bath even without a heater, because it helps even out atmospheric temperature changes.

I have my (£10) aquarium heater connected to one of these (£35ish all-in) http://www.brewuk.co.uk/forums/viewtopi ... e7ae989213 which is working very well. I'm getting a good even temperature in the FV and have tested with the separate probe enough to keep that in the trug too, rather than having to put it in the FV (again, preferring to keep the FV empty of anything not absolutely necessary!).

[EDIT... Oh yes... I do just use the two clips with suckers, attached to the outside of the FV within the trug. It's a 50W heater.]

 

[jordibird]

Thanks Dave NE, Stu & Morethan for all the info and advice on using heaters, I'm attempting to conquer the garage tonight and hopefully find that old abandoned fish tank heater and I'm sure there will be something to make a water bath with, would a plastic baby bath do as I know I have one of them also in the garage or god forbid would I melt it

I think I will swaddle the PET's in bubble wrap until I get my heater and water bath sorted, I checked out the link from Morethan and would probably electrocute myself and the whole street if I attempted that (I have to write the wire colours down when I change a plug :whistle: ), but it's a fantastic idea.

Cheers one again
Lezli :