I'm looking to replace my heaters and was wondering if you all had some suggestions on the configuration for redundancy. I have a 80G cube (100G total volume) and am running 2 Eheim Jagers at the moment. A few months ago I picked up an Apex and put one of the heaters on the EB832 and the other on an unmanaged power strip. The one on the unmanged power strip decided to get stuck on this weekend, so other then letting me know bad things were about to happen, the Apex had no control. So now I'm looking to get away from glass heaters and go titanium and I've come up with a few scenarios, each with their pro/con.
Option 1) Helio PTC 400 (dual 200W) plugged into a single EB832 outlet
Option 2) 2 BRS Titanium 200W plugged into two EB832 outlets
Option 3) 1 BRS Titanium 200W plugged into single EB832 Outlet & a Helio PTC 200 (single 200W) into unmanaged power strip.
I can find points of failure with each of these scenarios, but I'm leaning towards option 1. My reasoning is that the EB832 outlet will act more as a safety net than a controller on its own. If there is an issue with the Apex, I can default the outlet to ON knowing that the Helio should still handle things as expected. The main issue here is if the Helio controller fails, but then the Apex will keep it from going out of range.
Option two is just less equipment without the additional controller, which I really like since all my equipment is in my stand and it is packed right now. I'm resorting to screwing things to the doors at this point. I feel like this would be almost as reliable as option 1 except for the case where the Apex looses connectivity, where I would probalby just default the heaters to off.
Option 3 is closer to what I'm running now, but it still has the issue where if the non-managed outlet heater fails, there's nothing I can do other than to be alerted. I was originally thinking that 2 independant controllers, Apex and Helio, would be beneficial, but I don't know that I'm actually gaining anything here and option 1 still seems like a better choice.
I know there's some opinions out there so let's hear 'em
Thanks...
Option 1) Helio PTC 400 (dual 200W) plugged into a single EB832 outlet
Option 2) 2 BRS Titanium 200W plugged into two EB832 outlets
Option 3) 1 BRS Titanium 200W plugged into single EB832 Outlet & a Helio PTC 200 (single 200W) into unmanaged power strip.
I can find points of failure with each of these scenarios, but I'm leaning towards option 1. My reasoning is that the EB832 outlet will act more as a safety net than a controller on its own. If there is an issue with the Apex, I can default the outlet to ON knowing that the Helio should still handle things as expected. The main issue here is if the Helio controller fails, but then the Apex will keep it from going out of range.
Option two is just less equipment without the additional controller, which I really like since all my equipment is in my stand and it is packed right now. I'm resorting to screwing things to the doors at this point. I feel like this would be almost as reliable as option 1 except for the case where the Apex looses connectivity, where I would probalby just default the heaters to off.
Option 3 is closer to what I'm running now, but it still has the issue where if the non-managed outlet heater fails, there's nothing I can do other than to be alerted. I was originally thinking that 2 independant controllers, Apex and Helio, would be beneficial, but I don't know that I'm actually gaining anything here and option 1 still seems like a better choice.
I know there's some opinions out there so let's hear 'em
Thanks...