Help - heaters in a house with no heating

[Wishafish]

Sorry this is just me flying back in after a long absence because I need some help! What sort of minimum room temperature will a typical aquarium heater be able to cope with? Our heating is broken - it’s forecast to freeze next weekend and there will be no heat in the house at all. The heaters in both tanks are ”appropriately sized” by the normal rules but I can’t remember what that is. Any ideas of how I can get my livestock through this please?

[Staffylover]

Hi, I am no expert but I think you will be surprised how warm your house can be in comparison to outside even with no heating especially if it has been sunny during the day,
However if possible I would look at getting a cheap electric fan heater, oil filled radiators are better but they are more of an investment, you could run this for an hour in the evening to keep the ambient temperature up, I would have thought the heaters will be ok the water in the tank will already be warm so it's not like the heater will have to heat the water from freezing, no fun to be without heating, hope you get it fixed soon.

[Vale!]

All else being equal, your heaters should cope - they'll just be 'on' for more of the time. If you suspect that either heater may be underpowered for the size of its tank then throwing a blanket or two over the tank may offer some peace of mind!

Insulating smaller tanks (greater surface-area-to-volume ratio) would be a good idea anyway for you until your unfortunate situation is resolved.

May I extend warmest wishes to you, and 'thoughts and prayers' to any simian brass housemates that you may have.

[Edit : to acknowledge Staffy's interposed post]

[Wishafish]

Thanks both, we do have a fan heater that we can run when we are here but I’m not willing to leave it on when we are out. The heating has been broken for a couple of weeks already without any problem with the tanks, but we haven’t had any freezing temperatures yet.

I think I will bubble wrap the shrimp tank, thank you, Vale! Insulation was so flipping obvious I hadn’t thought of it.

[Stephen]

The heaters should cope without issues.
As previously mentioned throw a blanket over the aquariums at night to help with insulation and hopefully save on the aquarium heating bill.

All the best

[LookoutTrout]

I've seen scales showing how many Watts are needed to heat how many degrees above ambient temperature and if I remember right most guides are only designed for 5-10 degrees above room temp, so you are right to wonder as below 16 will kill some livestock.
Insulating sounds like a good idea.

[BAINBRIDGE]

An extra aquarium heater in the tank would help. My quarantine tank is in the unheated garage and maintains temperature, though it's only a 60ltr with 2 heaters in it.

[Wishafish]

An extra aquarium heater in the tank would help.

Thanks, I’ll be doing that later as I’ve now got my spare heater back from a friend.

[Wishafish]

The heating was fixed on Tuesday, and I’m pleased to report no losses but it was a long and stressful month. I’ve left the extra heater in the big tank until next cleaning day - I’d forgotten how ugly heaters are in full view! The shrimp tank got quite cold at one point but I didn’t see any bodies and they were active and feeding throughout and all are ok now. Thanks for the help everyone.

[Stephen]

Glad to hear it worked out.