The larger the aquarium the less watts per gallon of heating you need. This is due in part to thicker glass providing better insulation but also due to the ratio of aquarum surface area to volume being smaller for larger aquaria. I used as little as 200 watts to heat a 150g aquarium, which works out to about 1.3 watts per gallon. In a 5g, you probably want at least 25 watts. Since fluorescent and MH lights are only about 35% energy efficient, lots of lighting (3 or 4 watts per gallon) can put a lot of heat into an aquarium. So the size of heater can be affected by the amount of lighting. SH --- WB4CIW@aol.com wrote: > Actually, I was taught the "Rule of Thumb" for heaters > was > 5 watts/gallon. ===== S. Hieber - - - - - - - - Amano Returns to the AGA Annual Convention Nov 2004 -- Baltimore __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html ------------------ To unsubscribe from this list, please send mail to majordomo@thekrib.com with "Unsubscribe aga-member" in the body of the message. Archives of this list can be found at http://lists.thekrib.com/aga-member/