# undersoil heating



## peter (10 Sep 2007)

Iwill be setting up  a high tec tank using the denerle duomat comfort  with summer setting and  night time reduction used older model with  good  results  but meet with great scepticism  from the  experts  My own observations shows it to work  Even amano uses it in  some setups  so why is so out of favours your thought please


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## CJ Castle (10 Sep 2007)

The impact that a substrate heater has on plant growth is fairly minimal... Lots of Aquascapers get amazing results without using this piece of equipment and therefore, people just don't think it's needed.


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## beeky (10 Sep 2007)

Many people have had great results with using undersoil heating, but just as many seem to have had great results without it. I don't know if there have been any publicised experiments to compare with/without.


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## George Farmer (10 Sep 2007)

I've used them and not used them.

I didn't notice any difference.  If there were any difference, it didn't justify the cost and the ugly cable running up the tank.

Amano doesn't use them anymore.  ADA would sell them otherwise... 

I honestly don't think any "modern" enthusiast uses them anymore, not that I know...

They are useful in cold room I understand.

You should ask Tom Barr on the Barr Report.  http://www.barrreport.com.


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## Dave Spencer (10 Sep 2007)

I have one in my 120l tank. I ran it for long periods whilst I had a jungle of stems growing, and then switched it off to see what happened. Personally, I can`t see that it made any difference whatsoever. A waste of Â£30 or whatever it cost me, IMHO.

Dave.


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## zig (10 Sep 2007)

Hi Peter 

How did you observe it made a difference?


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## zig (24 Sep 2007)

bump


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## TDI-line (11 Nov 2007)

I'm running the Dennerle system, with two 75 watt heating cables connected to the duomat evo. Nice piece of kit for controlling all aspects of heating.

But it's early days yet to see how it affects plant growth.


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## Graeme Edwards (11 Nov 2007)

For me, I could grow any plant with out the added cost of an under soil heater. It just isnt worth the cost of purchase and running costs. A waste of money and time IMO.


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## Matt Holbrook-Bull (11 Nov 2007)

In the early days of planting, an under-soil heating system does show some benefits.. the same techniques are used in terrestrial propagation widely throughout the horticultural industry.

however, I question the use after the first few weeks of planting.  Once the root systems are established in terrestrial systems, heat actually can impair top growth, as it forces the plant to put more energy into the root system.  

The other factor that needs to be considered, is that our aim in aquatic planting, has to be to recreate the biotope most preferred by the plants, therefore, its natural environment. We spend huge amounts of time fiddling with factors such as KH, PH, ferts in the water column etc.  In a natural system, the substrate would actually be COOLER than the water column by a fractional amount.. surely by heating the substrate on a permanent basis will be providing an UN-favourable parameter, as any plant simply wouldn't be evolved to handle this? 

Its an interesting subject though, and yes Peter, one that sets experts off against each other very regularly!    What we need, is someone to do fully controlled tests on the method, same waters, same substrates, same species of plants, one not heated, one fully heated, one heated for the first 2 weeks or so. Would be interesting to see, and highly desirable to put it to bed.


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