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One of my prized fish is a hybrid syno (euptera and ?) who is about 8 1/2 inches long. She is in a tank that, by any standard, is too small for her, so I am getting ready to move the whole gang into an Eclipse 37. The new tank will be in a different room, where ambient room heat will not be such an convenient factor. I have read many horror stories about prized synos wedging themselves between the heater and the glass and, and like anyone else here, want to avoid a cooked, or branded fish. I have been sadly surprised that I have not been able to find any commercially available shrouds for heaters. I have found heaters that were designed for reptile tanks, which have integral cages and the Rena Smart heaters, which look like they are designed to attatch to the pick-up tubes on a rena Smartfilter. Are there any other devices out there that any of you have had good luck with? How easy would it be to fit the Rena heater to the powerhead lift tube on the Eclipse hood, or is there a better, bore cost effective way.

Thankss

Sam

If you have an external filter, how about one of the in-line heaters that you could attach to the return pipe. The heater would be outside the aquarium so no danger of fish burns.

HTH

Rich

Inline heaters on the filter system is one solution.

The other solution is a heater guard - many heater manufacturers sell those. Visitherm even include a heater guard in the price of the heater (at least here in Europe).

It's also quite possible to build a DIY heater guard from a piece of PVC or ABS water pipe - it's not terribly complicated. Just make sure it's "syno entry proof" [no BIG holes], and that the heater doesn't touch the plastic.

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Mats

Surely the simplest & best solution is to create a few natural caves/hidey-holes in the tank which are the fishes premier areas of comcealment, so it should avoid the heater area

I agree with Richard, but that's not to say that the fish won't decide to hide near the heater ANYWAYS. But sure, lots of hidey places is a good thing.

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Mats

for a cheap heater guard i use a section of the plastic support mesh from a moss-pole - i got 4 lengths suitable for heater guards from the old moss-pole i had supporting a cheese plant - i'll see if i can get a pic

It should be very easy to fit a Rena Smartheater to your Eclipse intake. You would just have to cut the intake and slip the heater on top. I'm using a Smartheater on the intake of my Eheim 2213 in a 15 gallon breeder and had to cut the intake way short. My only concern in your case is that the Smartheater still leaves a gap so the fish can still wedge inself in there.

I have never been able to find a heater guard for sale in america, and the one time I tried to order some from the UK or Canada the sites either had none any more or the sites were no longer operational. We make them from black abs (i think it its) and drill holes all over it , smallish holes all over, and attach one big suction cup to the far end , and cut the abs at the top end on one half to accomadate the two original heater suction cups and brackets. Learned from this site.

It sounds like I've mis-understood how the Rena heaters work. my understanding was that the water was heated as it flowed though the heater, leaving an outer casing that is cooler than a more conventional heater.

oh, you're talking about the Hydor heaters. Those are the hydor inline heaters and not the rena, which replaces your intake. If you want to use an inline, you'd have to somehow route the flow the outlet through the heater before it goes back into your tank. Routing it through the inlet could be dangerous as it could clog and overheat the heater.