Eheim Jager acting up

[JayFish4004]

I have a 75W Eheim Jager heater coupled with an Inkbird controller - its been working fine for the last 7-8 Months - but I woke up this morning to the Inkbird alarm saying it got up to 80 degrees when it has never done that before (usually dialed in between 78-79).

About an hour ago I turned the blue dial down a degree on the Eheim and it still seems to be maintaining the temp it was maintaining prior to turning down the dial.

Do I have a faulty heater here? Should I get a new Jager or try a new brand?

 

[Angel_V_the_reefer]

I have a 75W Eheim Jager heater coupled with an Inkbird controller - its been working fine for the last 7-8 Months - but I woke up this morning to the Inkbird alarm saying it got up to 80 degrees when it has never done that before (usually dialed in between 78-79).

About an hour ago I turned the blue dial down a degree on the Eheim and it still seems to be maintaining the temp it was maintaining prior to turning down the dial.

Do I have a faulty heater here? Should I get a new Jager or try a new brand?

The sheik heaters are factory calibrated to maintain a steady temp, however mine has been doing that as well. My temp drops often, granted sometimes I forgot to add water to my ato and the back chamber water drops. Nevertheless if your heater is only heating steadily at a higher temp, you can move the red dial and set it to the current temp in order to ‘self calibrate’ the heater if that makes sense

 

[Angel_V_the_reefer]

The sheik heaters are factory calibrated to maintain a steady temp, however mine has been doing that as well. My temp drops often, granted sometimes I forgot to add water to my ato and the back chamber water drops. Nevertheless if your heater is only heating steadily at a higher temp, you can move the red dial and set it to the current temp in order to ‘self calibrate’ the heater if that makes sense

Eheim* sorry !

 

[JayFish4004]

The sheik heaters are factory calibrated to maintain a steady temp, however mine has been doing that as well. My temp drops often, granted sometimes I forgot to add water to my ato and the back chamber water drops. Nevertheless if your heater is only heating steadily at a higher temp, you can move the red dial and set it to the current temp in order to ‘self calibrate’ the heater if that makes sense

Hmm I have been playing with my chamber level (have a red sea max nano AIO) where the heater sits - you think fluctuating those levels might cause it to lose calibration a bit?

 

[Klyle]

I would get a new heater without a second thought. That's too inexpensive to take a chance of malfunctioning. Just my opinion but if it were me I'd get one the the titanium elements and control it with an inkbird

 

[JayFish4004]

I would get a new heater without a second thought. That's too inexpensive to take a chance of malfunctioning. Just my opinion but if it were me I'd get one the the titanium elements and control it with an inkbird

Any suggestions on which one?

 

[Klyle]

I'm using 2 of the brs titaniums. (200w) I've owned maybe 25 heaters over the past 2 decades, mostly titanium. The brs ones are by far the heaviest heaters I've seen. (Usually weight means quality, right?!) They're made in Germany also so that's good. If you go to YouTube and look up brs heaters they have videos on them. AND a 3 year warranty which no other ones do. They also sell the inkbird controllers which will run 2 heater simultaneously...I can personally attest to the usefulness of the inkbirds. They saved my tank a couple years ago when the finnex I was using stopped working while I was 1000 miles away. I got an alert on my phone and had my neighbor go pick up a new heater.

 

[Klyle]

Any suggestions on which one?

If you go with the brs heater you must get a controller. They do not have thermostats in them which makes them more reliable

 

[JayFish4004]

If you go with the brs heater you must get a controller. They do not have thermostats in them which makes them more reliable

I guess my concern with that would be wouldn’t that cause the internal power switch to degrade more quickly?

I also feel like that would cause more temperature fluctuation since the bird set ar 78 will shut off once it hits 79 and wont turn back on til it gets below 77 (with 1 degree high and low as minimum) so it will constantly be moving up and down 2 degrees

 

[Klyle]

I guess my concern with that would be wouldn’t that cause the internal power switch to degrade more quickly? I also feel like that would cause more temperature fluctuation since the bird will shut off once it hits 79 and wont turn back on til it gets below 77 so it will constantly be moving up and down 2 degrees

Well there is no internal switch inside the heater. If you plugged it directly to an outlet it would just stay on. The inkbird (my understanding) has 2 relays inside of it so if one fails the other would catch it. It also uses 2 temp probes for the same reason, redundancy. You can set the temps to whatever you like. Say a high temp of 79 and a low temp of 78. I have mine set to 79 and 78.5 so I only get a .5 fluctuation in temp. You could set it to a .2 fluctuation if you wanted but the tighter the range, the more on / off cycles you will have, thus wearing the controller out faster. I think it's good practice to replace the controller once a year or so regardless of how well it functions. They're fairly cheap and a small investment in order to mitigate the #1 cause of tank crashes... heaters stuck in the on position. If you go that route you don't need to replace the heater, just the controller

 

[Klyle]

I guess my concern with that would be wouldn’t that cause the internal power switch to degrade more quickly?

I also feel like that would cause more temperature fluctuation since the bird set ar 78 will shut off once it hits 79 and wont turn back on til it gets below 77 (with 1 degree high and low as minimum) so it will constantly be moving up and down 2 degrees

 

[JayFish4004]

If you go with the brs heater you must get a controller. They do not have thermostats in them which makes them more reliable

I guess my concern with that would be wouldn’t that cause the internal power switch to degrade more quickly? I also feel like that would cause more temperature fluctuation since the bird will shut off once it hits 79 and wont turn back on til it gets below 77 so it will constantly be moving up and down 2 degrees

Well there is no internal switch inside the heater. If you plugged it directly to an outlet it would just stay on. The inkbird (my understanding) has 2 relays inside of it so if one fails the other would catch it. It also uses 2 temp probes for the same reason, redundancy. You can set the temps to whatever you like. Say a high temp of 79 and a low temp of 78. I have mine set to 79 and 78.5 so I only get a .5 fluctuation in temp. You could set it to a .2 fluctuation if you wanted but the tighter the range, the more on / off cycles you will have, thus wearing the controller out faster. I think it's good practice to replace the controller once a year or so regardless of how well it functions. They're fairly cheap and a small investment in order to mitigate the #1 cause of tank crashes... heaters stuck in the on position. If you go that route you don't need to replace the heater, just the controller

gotcha - yeah I do use the Inkbird today with the eheim and it potentially saved me last night. Who knows if the Eheim was on its way to 90 before the Inkbird shut it down at 80 - it would be insane not to use one

My inkbird only lets you set 1 degree below and above for a 2 degree variance - so I rely on the heater to maintain temp and the inkbird to stop it if it goes out of that range. Does the BRS come with its own type of Inkbird?

 

[Klyle]

They sell them separately as well as together. That's weird about your inkbird. I know they make many different types. I've owned 2 and I could set both to whatever temps I wanted. I recently replaced the white one, I'm just too lazy to take it out of my stand!

 

[Klyle]

I guess my concern with that would be wouldn’t that cause the internal power switch to degrade more quickly? I also feel like that would cause more temperature fluctuation since the bird will shut off once it hits 79 and wont turn back on til it gets below 77 so it will constantly be moving up and down 2 degrees

gotcha - yeah I do use the Inkbird today with the eheim and it potentially saved me last night. Who knows if the Eheim was on its way to 90 before the Inkbird shut it down at 80 - it would be insane not to use one

My inkbird only lets you set 1 degree below and above for a 2 degree variance - so I rely on the heater to maintain temp and the inkbird to stop it if it goes out of that range. Does the BRS come with its own type of Inkbird?

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[JayFish4004]

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Just to update - I had a Cobalt Neotherm Pro handy and decided to flip out with that - it has been keeping a consistent temp way better than the Eheim.

I put the Eheim in a mixing bucket - no joke it has taken me almost 3 days to get it dialed in to 78. I still dont trust it since it ran away on me once, So for now I’m going to stick with the Cobalt and keep the Eheim handy for water changes and a backup.

 

[JayFish4004]

If something happens to the Cobalt the BRS is next on my list. Appreciate the input!

 

[Tamberav]

Hmm I have been playing with my chamber level (have a red sea max nano AIO) where the heater sits - you think fluctuating those levels might cause it to lose calibration a bit?

the heater has a minimum line. Did the water ever drop below that? You never want the heater to be running dry or partially dry.

 

[C_AWOL]

Have you tried getting warranty service on the eheim? They do offer a 3 year one on that too. Frankly for the cost and personal experience of long term reliability I would just buy more eheims over spending the premium on the other heaters and just replace annually if I felt the need to though.
Combined with a quality controller like ranco/aqualogic you end up with a borderline bullet proof set up thats only flaw is the collossal size of the typical eheim heater

 

[JayFish4004]

the heater has a minimum line. Did the water ever drop below that? You never want the heater to be running dry or partially dry.

Nope - it was always at the bottom of the tank in the AIO chamber of my red sea max nano. Worked flawlessly for 7-8 months and all of a sudden tried to go above 80 on me before my Inkbird caught it and shut her down.

 

[JayFish4004]

Have you tried getting warranty service on the eheim? They do offer a 3 year one on that too. Frankly for the cost and personal experience of long term reliability I would just buy more eheims over spending the premium on the other heaters and just replace annually if I felt the need to though.
Combined with a quality controller like ranco/aqualogic you end up with a borderline bullet proof set up thats only flaw is the collossal size of the typical eheim heater

Im having a tough time deciding if I can trust Eheim again - I think the runaway was enough for me to change plans. I like what Cobalt is doing - I know the neotherm came out with issues but assuming Neotherm Pro has fixed those.

If Cobalt fails me Im going to move to titanium BRS.

I also can’t stand Eheim’s calibration - it is so archaic and with my tank I have to pull out the skimmer to get to it, so its a huge pain to have to try to dial it in even moreso than if it was easily accessible.