Failsafe heater?

[Eienna]

I'd love to have a heater with a controller built in to turn it off in case it fails on. Even better if it would notify me!! I don't have the dough for an Apex (which I'm hoping to save up for), but what other options do I have in the meantime? The reason I even have the tank I do is that the owner got out of the hobby after his chiller failed and about $3k worth of corals cooked under his halides. I'd like to avoid cooking my tank. I'm almost always home, but when I'm not...well...I love my fish. Don't have a lot of cash but seriously don't want them boiled by a faulty heater. The chiller came with the tank but assuming it even works....can they be set to completely shut off when the water is below a certain temp, or do they keep circulating water through them? If it keeps pumping when not in use I don't think I can support the extra energy bill.

As far as failing off, I think I'll keep an extra heater plugged in as a backup.

 

[jdl513]

The best defense (in my opinion) is to use multiple lower power heaters.
The idea being if one sticks in the on position it does not have the output to overheat the display.

For instance if you have a 50 gallon I would have two 100 watt heaters not one 300 watt.