Finnex heater woes

[thewedge]

Well, you can add me to the list of people frustrated by heaters. I've used Finnex heaters on my other 2 tanks for several years and decided to go with their 800w model from BRS for my new Waterbox 180.5. I also purchased the Finnex controller. After having the heater in the sump for a day, it begin beeping loudly from the little box on the power cord. This beeping is coming from the heater itself, not the controller. According to the documentation this is due to the out of water sensor detecting that the heater was out of the water, which it most definitely was not. The directions state that the end of the heater where the cord attaches should be elevated slightly above the rest of the heater. I installed it in the sump as instructed. I reached out to BRS and they sent me a replacement heater which exhibited the same exact behavior in less than an hour. I even tried putting it completely vertical within the display tank and had the same result. I can understand one piece of equipment arriving DOA. Stuff happens. But with two in a row like this, it made me think that maybe I am doing something wrong. Hard to imagine what it could be as this is just a dumb heater and there's not much to it. I suppose I will reach out directly to Finnex tomorrow.
Has anyone had experience with this happening to their heater?

 

[Scorpius]

Aqualogic/Ranco controller and two appropriately sized Eheim heaters.

 

[ubiq]

Woke up this A.M. to high-pitched beeping from my two Finnex heaters. Both were fully submerged. On this model, there's an out-of-water alarm. They utilize a small port on the top to sense the presence of water. I suspect that if these ports become clogged they can produce a false negative. Try cleaning the tops of the heaters and see if the problem persists.

 

[thewedge]

I haven't been able to see a port on the top. But I took a brush and cleaned it off. Still having the same issue. Hard to believe it would have clogged after an hour, but I also find it hard to believe that I received two of them with the exact same issue. So anything is possible.
Their support said the unit requires the water to have a TDS of at least 75ppm, which seems to make sense if it relies on conductivity. I had to assure him my saltwater tank is higher than 75 TDS.

 

[bwp]

I am in the process of setting up a new tank and have run into the same problem. I'm filling the tank with RODI water to check for leaks and am trying out all of the equipment too. The finnex heater will not come on and continuously alarms that it is out of water like you all have mentioned.

I find it hard to believe that 75tds is required since this heater is marketed for both salth and freshewater, but I supposed that could be the problem. Either way - it is currently useless for me...

 

[thewedge]

Sorry to hear. I did eventually get my 2nd heater replaced by finnex. The customer service guy said the sensor was faulty. Once I sent it off, I got it back within 2 weeks. Has been ok since