First of all, let me address some of the concerns mentioned here in other reviews. The heater is preset to warm your tank to 73 degrees. That may or may not seem like a huge difference to you depending on how warm you keep your home, where the tank is located and if the warmth of the basking light is helping to warm things up. This heater is meant to take the chill out of the water, not to "keep it warm". It's not meant for that and that is not what the turtle is looking for.
Secondly, I have had great success with ours...EXCEPT (my OWN fault!)....when changing my turtles water, somehow my son plugged in the heater when the heater was not completely submerged. Huge problem in that it fizzled, sparked and popped umm not good. It does say it in the directions, but they don't really ever say what will happen if you plug it in early. Of course, common sense should dictate, but last night it did not. I spent hours cleaning out the new tank AGAIN and now I am back to buy another!
The plastic housing is great! Only once has my monster of a red eared slider been able to open it. She does manage to knock it loose once in awhile though! It's all good!!
Overall...I would buy again. I am buying again. I would recommend this for others as well!
This heater works well for my 11 year old eastern painted turtle. I have her housed in a 40 gallon tank on a window sill facing East (she likes to watch the sun rise). What is important to understand about reptiles is that they thrive on sunlight as their primary source of heat, and any reptile in captivity should have access to real sunlight and intense artificial light for a substantial amount of time every day. A lamp that emits UVA and UVB rays should be the primary source of heat in your reptile's habitat, and any other heat source, such as an aquatic heater for a turtle, should only be a secondary source of heat.
I use the water heater in the winter months to keep the water in my turtle's tank from getting too cold at night, once I have turned off her heat lamp. I chose this particular heater over traditional aquarium heaters because it is housed in a plastic cage, and my turtle is very destructive. I have been using the heater since November and she hasn't managed to take it apart yet!
Buy Tetra Aquatic Reptile Heater, 100 Watt Now
We recently received our Tetra Aquatic Reptile Heater, rated at 100watts and it has been great. Unit is built solid, has powerful suction cups and the option of routing the cord in 3 directions off one end. It says it is rated up to a 30 gallon tank, we have one that is 38 gallons (nearly full) for our 6" male Red Eared Slider turtle. He has checked it out, rested on it used it as platform etc and it hasn't budged or broken. The water stays at a constant 74 to 76 degrees. Our local pet shop charges $75.00 for a glass, unprotected heater of 75 watts. This unit was $16.99, protected and more powerful. Standard shipping had it at our door in Alaska in 5 days.
Read Best Reviews of Tetra Aquatic Reptile Heater, 100 Watt Here
got this for my turtle tank to keep the chill out of the water. works great, my turtle stays warm and my tank at the correct temp. I would buy this product again and recommed to friends.
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It worked for 3 weeks, then just stopped. I called the TetraFauna people to ask for a refund and the guy told me that I needed to buy a bigger heaterit is not strong enough for a 30 gallon tank unless your room temp is 72F. So this only heats the water from 72F room temp to 78F. 6 degrees is all shes got. After that it just dies, apparantly.
I've read other reviews off of amazon and this has horrible reviews-look elsewhere for a good tank heater.
I got this to put in a sump in media bags to buffer my freshwater tank's PH. Before the crushed coral, my PH was reading a flat 6.0 and bottomed out after every water change. But now, my tank's PH is holding at a solid 6.4/6.5 which is good because I have an Amazon River Pacu and they like acidic water. NOTE if you're buying this coral to use for this purpose, start with a small media bag, wait a week or so, test the PH, and add a small amount more if need be. Reason being, if you raise the PH too much or too quickly, ammonia becomes more toxic. AND NEVER use baking soda to manage your PH, it's a shock to the system and can kill your fish as non toxic ammonia becomes toxic free ammonia with the rising PH.
