Tank Temperature

Question
Hello,

I've recently purchased a 29 Gallon aquarium and it won't stay at a good temperature. I have a heater with just a normal setting of supposedly 76, but it goes down to about 74, the high setting is supposed to be about 82 but it goes up a couple of degrees as well. There are only two settings on the heater. I have 6 sharks, two snails, 3 types of corys, algae eaters, etc. If you could help that would be great.

Thanks.

Answer
Hi

Honestly, if you can't trust your heater to keep a reliable heater, get a new one because the last thing you want to happen is for it overheat and cook your fish.

74F is about 23.3 C and 82F is about 27.7C. Those two are the extremes of the comfortable range of temps your general tropical fish can ideally live in. Ideally they should be in temps between 75.2F and 78.8F.

IMO you should go out and buy a more reliable heater that has more than just two settings on it.

HTH