Hidom Quartz Glass Submersible Aquarium Thermostat Heater HT-8 Series

UK plug was a bit cheap looking. Shiny hard plastic found in less qualitative devices not complying with regulations.. Packaging contained a foam sleeve to go around the glass. The end cap was loose in the box and didnt fit well. Now the bad part. It's faulty. Set to 24c and noticed within a few hours it was clicking on regularly. Measured with laser thermometer I use against my higher end heaters and it showed 29c as water temperature. I dropped it to 20c setting and within a few seconds it clicked back on. Hidom have a reasonable industry history in fish world. This is a bit poor and would invariably cook your fish in your sleep. Luckily this is just for a quarantine tank and had no fish or plants. Heaters are risky if you buy cheap but with this said always use a laser thermometer against a known source as the markings are not very accurate and it takes a good few hours to really test a heater before adding fish.

I've got two of these and have been using them for several months without issue. They've safely maintained water termperatures and kept them stable, although I have them set to the same temperature and I'm using them in two identical tanks, I found one tank was consistently reading 1 degree higher than the other. I've seen others warn about failures so I've opted to use external regulators to safeguard against cooking my fish if they do ever fail, this helped correct the temperature difference. Other than that, I've nothing bad to report and had no real issues.

It all started so well. Bought it to replace an Ehiem which would not shut off. So in this one went and it was fine through spring and summer. However, now with autumn approaching, I find that the Hidom can’t keep temperatures higher than 24C. No matter how high I turn up the thermostat it cuts out at around 24.6 or so. My fish need it at around 28. Now having to trawl through Amazon and fleabay for yet another replacement.

The dial on the side was about 3c lower than actual, that could be compensated for however over the few days I owned this before returning the heater would click off allowing the water temperature to fall 5c below the required temperature and would only start heating again once turned off for a few minutes then back on again. Cheap, unreliable and retuned.

This is what the heater looked like after 6 weeks use , leaving my fish cold for 2 weeks , as was in the office not currently being used and only returned to service tankPrevious heater this replaced lasted 6 years .

Its okay but dial is a bit cheapUpdate- heater isn’t warming up the water anymore. I noticed the coil heated up only at the tip and it looked cheap compared to my other heater where that coil looks solid. I recommend spending extra 5 quid and getting a better heater

Unfortunately the product arrived damaged therefore I did not use the product because I didn't want to risk it.The product itself especially the glass felt of high quality, sadly the compartment inside is otherwise of low quality.

This is a really smart looking heater and works well. Be aware though that it gets very hot very quickly and a heater guard is absolutely essential if you don’t want your fish to risk suffering very severe burns.