General Care Discussion :: Temperature fluctuation

[Colorado Turtle Mom]

I have a 7" female slider that I adopted about a year ago. She is in a 55 gallon tank with a turtle topper. I have two water heaters, a small one and a larger one (not sure of the wattage). If I use both heaters, the temp gets up to 77 degrees. If I only use the small one, it gets down to about 71 degrees. I plug in and unplug the larger heater off and on when it gets to be what I think is too cold or too warm. Is it bad to have the temperature fluctating? Overall she seems to be healthy and happy.

[steve]

I don't think it's that bad but it's good to avoid that much fluctuation. How warm does it get with only the large heater plugged in? Generally 77F is fine for RES and most adult RES will do fine in 71F water, though I think most of us try to maintain it at 75F.

[TurtleKeeper48]

I can't really speak to what effect temperature fluctuations will have on your turtle... but I doubt it's good.

Honestly - it sounds like they are set at different temps.

If you leave them both plugged in, the water gets up to 77 deg? (not too far off either - I shoot for 75 or 76)


What happens if you just leave the big heater plugged in, and un plug the small one. Water gets up to 77 or not? If so, I'd just use the big one and juts turn it diwn a touch.

[TurtleKeeper48]

woops - Sorry Steve, we posted at the same time... I wasn't trying to repeat what you had just said.

I say - what Steve said/

[steve]

Happens to me all the time. I usually open 25+ tabs and go through the oldest first, but a lot of times someone beats me to the reply by the time I reach it.

[marisa]

Some fluctuation isn't bad. A healthy adult RES will have no problems with a temp of 71F. In fact, a temp of 70 -71F is the norm for my RES.

[Colorado Turtle Mom]

Thanks for all your suggestions. I looked at my heaters, the smaller one is 200 watts, the larger is 300 watts. I turned off the smaller one and left the larger one on and it was at 76 this morning (when my house is down to 66 degrees, it was 5 degrees outside Brrrrrr) and came up to 77/78 once the house warmed up. I have the larger one set at the lowest setting (it's a Top Fin) so I'm not sure why it won't regulate at 75/76. Forest (the turtle) does seem to go up in the turtle topper to bask every now and then, more in the daytime than at night when I'm home. I'll see how the next week or so goes with just the larger heater. If it stays at 77/78 consistently, but she continues to bask, I guess I won't worry too much. Thanks again. This is the greatest web site in the world!