kgkatie

I recently set up (about three weeks ago) a 30 gallon Eclipse tank. My water temp started out at 77 degrees over a few days it reached almost 86 degrees. I have one thermometer on the side of the tank and one at the bottom. Both are registering pretty much the same. I turned off the heater lowered the house temp turned off the tank lights and turned on the ceiling fan after a few days the temp came down to 80 degrees. I turned on the lights for a short time (a couple of hours) and the temp went back up to 84 degrees. Would appreciate any advice anyone could give me on this.

Katie

RubberFrog

What kind of light do you have? If it is incandescent and too close to the tank, that coul be your problem.

dlee9707

an eclipse tank is a kit tank with its own shape that you cant put any of your own hardware on. the stuff that it came with will not cause severe damage, unless you somehow modified the lighting DIY style. maybe when you turned on the lights you also turned on the heater and didnt mention it and the heaters thermostat is broken. just a thought. if it is the lights you might wanta add a DIY pc fan to keep hot stagnant air from forming or drill a few holes in the hood to allow hot air to rise.

__________________
55 Gallon Tank:
4X yellow lab
Breeding pair of Red Empress
Female OB peacock
S. Fryeri
Syno. Catfish
Blue Batia
Generic Pleco
One Tinfoil Barb (i couldnt get the thing out with a net or anything else, so i guess its there to stay...)

mike

i would start by replacing the heater it could be broken

Tommy Gun

Ditto on Mike's advice. Always try to fix the 'main source' of a problem first, or at least the easiest source you can control. Even if it is not the heater, then you will have a spare to use later on.

I really doubt that the lights in a pre-fab type tank like the eclipse's usually are would be enough to heat the water much, if at all. Are you sure you have the right bulb in it right now? It could be possible that the bulb was wrong from the manufacturer or the tank is a returned unit and someone else put the wrong thing in. I would check this if it is not the heater along with making sure you are using the right type of electricity, which would be pretty hard to mess up I guess.

kgkatie

Thanks for all the assistance. My heater is not plugged in at all so I know for sure at this point that that is not it.
I bought the tank used from a next door neighbor so I will speak with him to see if he changed anything and I will double check the bulbs. Just using regular house electricity 110 volt but I have noticed that the (and now you'll get a really big laugh because I don't know what it's called, maybe a transformer) big black box that plugs into the outlet gets very very hot if the lights are left on too long. Don't know if that is a problem or not.
Right now I opened the hood to see if it will help lower the temp.