UTH Broken?

Hey Guys,

So my older(less than a year) Zoo-Med UTH its for a 10-20g is not heating up enough. I just noticed this last night where the hotside was only around 84 when the day before it was around 90-92. Has anyone had this happen to them? I could understand if it stopped working but its just not heating up enough. Any ideas?

Thanks!

It sounds like it is probably broken. Is it connected to a thermostat or rheostat? If it is, try plugging it in directly to a wall outlet. If it is still cool I would suggest replacing it.

Zoo-med doesn't have the best quality merchandise. I would recommend something like a Fluker's heat mat.

Good luck. :)

I am also having a problem with a Zoo Med small sized (10 to 20 gal.) under tank heater. I believe my problem is that im using aspen chips as a substrate and also too much of it which is causing it to act as an insulator. As of this writing the temp of what is suppose to be my warm side is only at 76.5 F, which I know is unacceptable. I am going to switch to newspaper and believe that is going to solve my problem. What type of substrate are you using?

If you are sure that the temperature has changed, and that the change has been signifigant, I would buy another brand UTH. I was considering this, however I realised soon after that the wattage on most UTHs are the same (around 8 watts) so I decided against that route.

Anything Zoomed will break before you know it. I have two Zoomed UTHs that I have just in case and both barely work. One I only had to two months and used it for a few days, maybe a week. :rolleyes:

Just use flexwatt already, cheap and works great, but you !!MUST!! use a thermostat with it. You should be using a thermostat either way really.

I am using Eco-Earth as a substrate right now. I have a thermostat on it controlling 2 different Zoo-Meds, one is brand new and is staying right around 97(89-92) through the substrate and the other will drop down to 80s and has gotten up to around 90 at max today. So I am thinking it just has to be the older Zoo Med crappin out on me. I see a lot of flexwatt for rack systems but how good is it for a tank? Since the only thing that is carried around my area is ZooMed stuff I will probably end up ordering something anyways. Thanks for all the info!

i had that zoo med heat pad and the problem i discovered, AFTER i bought it, was that it's too weak, in the sense that it will not heat up to an appropriate temp because of its super low wattage. i didnt see the reviews on it til i went back to the site and checked it out.
i ended up not even using my thermostat at all with that u.t.h and it STILL wasnt getting warm enough.
too much substrate over a really weak u.t.h is gonna make for really low surface temps.
my opinion - zoo med u.t.h's = trash & not worth the money.
my recommendation - try the hagen exo terra heat wave desert heat mat, 10.5" x 11"...
that's what i'm using now, WITH my thermostat, and i'm getting really good temps so, yeah.