Dweezilz
Active Member
I am coming up to the 1 year mark on my Reefer 250 (65g tot) system. I currently have 2 Finnex Titanium 150w heaters with controllers which are controlled by an Inkbird with the Inkbird doing the on/off at 78 and heaters set to 80. I'm taking the BRS advice and replacing both of them as yearly maintenance. The Finnex have been fine but their temp is very inaccurate (even set to 80 sometimes one or the other turns off before 78) so I want to get something better. I need something fairly small as my sump space is very limited so eheim is out.
I've calculated that I have approx 52 total gallons of water out of the 65g capacity, after rocks, sand, sump equipment which means my range of heat wattage should be 156 (3X) to 260 (5X). I live in north east Ohio and the room tends to be cold in the winter so opted for the high end. Of the best options I have to replace the Finnex it seems that most brands do not have 150w and only have 100w or 200w. Do I stick only with a brand like AquaEL that do have 150's but don't have external controllers or drop to two 100's and be in the middle of the range or go two 200's to get something like BRS titanium + controllers or IM Helio/controllers and risk having 400w total getting stuck on, which to be fair, would take both the inkbird to fail on and the two Helio to get stuck on which is highly unlikely. The most likely thing if the inkbird failed on is that my tank would go to 80 degrees.
Thoughts on the best route to take?
I've calculated that I have approx 52 total gallons of water out of the 65g capacity, after rocks, sand, sump equipment which means my range of heat wattage should be 156 (3X) to 260 (5X). I live in north east Ohio and the room tends to be cold in the winter so opted for the high end. Of the best options I have to replace the Finnex it seems that most brands do not have 150w and only have 100w or 200w. Do I stick only with a brand like AquaEL that do have 150's but don't have external controllers or drop to two 100's and be in the middle of the range or go two 200's to get something like BRS titanium + controllers or IM Helio/controllers and risk having 400w total getting stuck on, which to be fair, would take both the inkbird to fail on and the two Helio to get stuck on which is highly unlikely. The most likely thing if the inkbird failed on is that my tank would go to 80 degrees.
Thoughts on the best route to take?
