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UTH and not burning the house down

jen murphy

jen murphy

New member
So, I'm wondering how exactly this UTH thing works. Say I get a glass tank and adhere the UTC to the bottom. Now...I need to set the tank down on something that is not flammable I suppose?

Do I need to get a metal stand of sorts, or am I missing something? What do you guys do? Can I use wooden furniture without burning my house down?
 
You need to plug the UTH into a thermostat and get a probe thermometer. You are going to set it to 85.....You wont burn anything down with a UTH set to 85 degrees, your hand is warmer then that.
 
I wouldn't stick it to your tank. If you decide to change tanks sometimes they heaters wont work properly if you peel them off. Get some aluminum foil tape from a hardware store and stick it on with that.
 
I have heard of people just cutting the corners of the protective sheet off so that only the 4 corners are sticky. You should make sure that the tank has about 1/4 - 1/2 inch of air space beneath it. The UTH usually comes with little rubber feet to elevate it but if you have it on a wood surface you may want to use something extra to give it a little more room.
 
Mine are all stuck to the bottoms of the glass vivs, elevated only by the rubber feet they come with, sitting on wooden furniture. At 85F, they are barely warm to the touch.
 
I use furniture sliders (upside down) under my tanks to lift them up a little. I'm pretty paranoid about things like that so I also put down some reflectix under all my tanks and I've never had a problem with any of that.
 
If your using fishtanks, the bottom of them are not flat. They are elevated like Nanci said, and most UTH come with rubber bumpers so you can elevated the tank, and it wont sit on the cord.
 
I use the rubber feet and have the whole setup elevated on flooring tiles, plus my UTH is regulated by a modified version of D's $7 Rheostat which keeps the UTH at 92 degrees on the glass and 85 on the substrate.

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It is on a wood shelf and has not caught fire to date..... knocks on wood.....
 
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