I learned this the hard way. My 54 year old slider became ill and all the vet websites said how crucial it is to maintain a steady warm water temp while trying to help him recover. Naturally, my latest glass heater had recently broken, and since I'd gone through more glass tube heaters than I could count throughout the years, I thought I'd go a different route this time and ordered this encased type. I was also tempted to buy this one because after all, it had the Tetra Repto name, a company division supposedly geared to the reptile world. I did not realize it was preset to a certain temp and could not be adjusted by any means. What a mistake! Its only pros are that its suction cups tended to stay in place better than many of its predecessors, and its case is easy to remove to clean. Now, if only it would have actually heated the water! No matter where I placed it within the tank, I could not get it to go above 76 degrees, a temp which is too low as a good maintenance temp that vets recommend for turtles even when they are in good health. For heaven's sake, it only had to heat 4 gallons of water and it couldn't do it!! This is particularly confusing to me, since the target demographic for this product is aquatic turtles. So there I was, with a sick turtle and no way to get the water temp up high enough to help him. I had to dry dock him under towels for three days till a new, adjustable heater arrived. I'm so grateful he was able to hold on. He looked so bad, reddish mucus everywhere and he really seemed to be failing. I was bracing myself, almost positive I would lose him. Thankfully, the new adjustable heater came, I got the water up to the recommended therapeutic temperature and he eventually pulled through. I was REALLY lucky. I'm very bummed, though, because I had much going on around here and managed to miss the return deadline, so I'm stuck with this thing. Another point to keep in mind if you are considering this type of heater: A turtle's health can change on a dime, as I learned late on that Saturday night. What will you do if your little guy takes sick and you can't immediately provide him with the extra bump in temp you need to give him the warmth his body needs to at least try to help him recover? Those first hours can be critical. All I can say is, keep looking. Preset types in general are just a bad idea. Decent adjustable ones ARE out there and I did find a really good yet affordable one, in the same price range as this Repto model. I'm grateful that I now have a fully submersible, accurate, easily adjustable heater, without glass tubes and encased in plastic that cleans easily. It's just a shame that my turtle almost lost his life in the process. I'd love to tell you the name of this better heater, but don't think Amazon's review rules would allow it. Bottom line:. As I said, If you care about your turtle, KEEP LOOKING! This is NOT the product to buy!
