HEATER ISSUES & FAVORITE HEATERS! Prevent a tank crash with good heater knowledge!

[Biglew11]

i use a finnex heater on an aqualogic controller that's plugged into apex. been using the aqualogic controller now for 10 years. and the finnex heater without thermostat is about 4 years. i have a spare sitting on a shelf ready to go.

 

[Larry Somers]

Heater worked, but water temp varied.

 

[OC4]

2 heaters fails same day not nice! APEX could not help there :-(

 

[Strangewaterchange]

I used to go through heaters every 6 months or more often when I was doing freshwater, tried multiple brands and none seemed any better than others. I finally tried the eheim when I started my reef tank and so far it seems to be 200% more reliable than any other I've used.

 

[Bubblebass]

Had a neotherm stuck on. Apex saved my tank. Now I use good old Eheim Jagers and replace every 1.5-2 years.

 

[ReeferCrabness]

Had a power pole transformer outside my house go nuclear and
send 220V down each of my 110V lines. Heater exploded and was
sending lightning bolts into the water. Obviously not the heater makers fault, but it was a nasty experience.

Here's a picture of the return pump:

Killed almost everything in my tank. Only thing that survived was a
few mushrooms and my Watchman Goby. He did turn white for
about six months, then back to yellow.

 

[Treefer32]

I had a Jaegar (Sp?) heater fail. But not in any of the ways listed above, it had been kept in cold storage for 2 years until my next tank build. It had been used for 2 years prior to that so was around 4 -5 years old when I went to use it again. Everything was fine for about 8 -9 months of starting my new 350 gallon tank. Between May and June of 2019 I was up to around 23 fish or so, and had been slowly building up over time. Then, fish started dying in groups of two and three. There were no issues with temperature, ph, salinity was all fine, and my corals over a 4 week period of my fish dieing showed signs of faster growth. There were several sps and even LPS that had grown by at least 10-20% in 3-4 weeks. At the same time I was losing 2-3 fish a week.

I could not figure it out. I ran the situation by the LFS owner in Fargo. He said, have you tested for stray voltage. I said no, but wouldn't my corals be dieing and not growing if it was that. He said no, google electrified reef cages in the ocean to replenish coral reefs. I did, It was done in the 70s and 80s to speed coral reef replenishment. Huge cages were built and placed near new corals in the ocean then electrified. The corals showed rapid growth in a very short amount of time. I thought, oh crap.. The symptoms are all the same. Corals are healthy and growing fast, fish are slowly dying 1-2 a week and no signs of it slowing. I bought a meeting and tried checking for stray voltage. I couldn't figure out how to read the thing. The setting that everyone said to use showed the voltage jumping all over the place, with or without stuff plugged in. I couldn't get a single reading on anything. So, I ditched the voltage meter and used my body. I touched the metal parts of the furnace. It's a big appliance, I figured some part of it had to be grounded. And then stuck my hand in the sump. I felt a slight buzzing on my hand in the sump. kinda like the feeling of static electricity, my hair stood up slightly. I went through and one by one turned things off and no change. I started to think it was just in my head that I wasn't feeling anything. Then I turned off one of my two heaters. The buzzing stopped. I turned it back on and it was there. I went and looked at my last remaining 2-3 fish. One was a large black tang. He was swimming normal and relaxed, much more relaxed than he had been.

I went turned the heater back on with my apex and went back and viewed the black tang and he was swimming in circles now. went and turned it off and he stopped swimming in circles instantly.

I had found the culprit.. I pulled the heater out, there was no visible signs of damage to any part of the heater. It just leaked electricity into the water. Maybe it would have exploded at some point. . .

In total I had a large fox face rabbit fish that didn't fully recover. A yellow wrasse that jumped out, and I had one fish that survived and that was my black tang whom is still alive today.

In short, the only options for eaters to malfunction is not to explode, or stick on, or things like that. They can also leak just enough electricity to electrocute fish and cause corals to grow faster. It's strange to see all the fish dying and corals almost growing right before your eyes. I replaced both heaters and left the tank with one fish for about 6 months to allow all the nutrients and everything to get back into balance. Then started adding fish at one or two at a time this past August. I'm up to 25 fish now and so far all fish are doing well. I now have two finnex heaters, which I may just replace every 2-3 years.

 

[Raj]

Most of my wounds in the hobby are self-inflicted, including my only mishap with my heater. I was cleaning around my sump, and I had to move some wires around the back of it, and it snagged the temp sensor of my heater and pulled it out of the water onto the floor without me noticing. Later that night, I knew something was up when my tank's temp got over 90, and figured out my mistake. Made sure the temp sensor is well secured going forward.

 

[Tmtdvm]

I choose other. I just had this happen last week. Both of my heaters had a short which was electrocuting the water. Tested them individually. Found out the heater control box was the culprit. Thank god none of my fish or corals were lost. I have the heater control box mounted externally away from condensation however nothing is fool proof.

 

[TronChief]

I had the top seal fail on a titanium heater. Was a real shocking experience.

 

[Weeble10]

I use two CoBalt Neo-Therms (300w) & (150w) on a Inkbird controller plugged into “smart” power-strip for redundancy...so far so good

 

[Chas J]

2 finnex on a Ranco.

Ranco for the win!!! An industrial controller over hobby crap any day.

 

[androidx1]

Main Heater - Finnex Titanium heating element connected to Bayite temp controller. With the Bayite plugged into Apex for emergency shutoff at programmed temp limits.

Backup Heater - Finnex Titanium heating element. Plugged directly into apex outlet and will only operate if temp gets down to predetermined temp. So far in 2 years there thankfully hasnt been a need for the backup heater to turn on.

Text and audible alarm if temp gets above or below set points.

 

[BKLYN651]

Have not had a problem with any Eheim heaters. I do have a loud heat sensor if it does fail, or water gets to low.

 

[Greybeard]

When BRS started offering their own branded heaters with a 3 year warranty, I thought, 'Finally, someone is going to make a decent quality heater'. I bought one immediately, along with their branded inkbird controller.

8 months later, I started getting GFI faults, eventually traced back to the BRS heater tube.

BRS happily replaced it, but in the meanwhile, I put my spare, a Finnex titanium tube, into service. It's still there, the new BRS tube is on the shelf... along with a new Inkbird.

Oh, and the Inkbird is plugged into an Apex outlet, with a high temp setpoint and shutoff of it's own.

There is simply no such thing as a reliable heater. The _only_ way to go is redundancy.

 

[ChrisNH]

Voted NO.. but lack of having them fail has not prevented me from hooking it up to a reef pi to monitor and shut off and notify as required.

 

[SteveMM62Reef]

High End Titanium Heater leaked after about Five Month. Guess what the Outside doesn’t bleed into the water but the innards do. Corals told me something was wrong. Drs. Foster & Smith did Credit me for the heater. I really miss D.R.&S. Not the Same since P-C took them over. BTW the heater wouldn’t trip the GFI till I moved the ground probe from the Aquarium to the Sump.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

DON'T FORGET AFTER YOU READ TO TELL US WHAT YOUR FAVORITE HEATER IS!

It's starting to cool down outside and with the cool down comes the need to heat the aquarium water! But with that also comes many opportunities for heater failure and tank loss! Eek! So let's talk about heaters today and your experiences! The following are a few of my experiences.

Heater Explosion - Personally I have had glass heaters explode in my aquarium. One instance it happened in my sump and I didn't find out until the tank crashed! I don't think glass heaters are that prevalent anymore but what about other materials. Can they explode?

Heater Sticking On - I have had even the best of heaters stick on but thankfully these have not been in my aquarium but my saltwater mixing container. I mitigate this in my reef tank by having my controller shut off the heaters if the tank reaches a certain temperature.

Heater Not Large Enough - Again I have had this problem before where my heater didn't have enough "watts" to keep the amount of water in my aquarium warm. Be careful here because while you need to have a big enough heater you don't want to oversize it. Matter of fact using a couple or a few smaller wattage heaters to accomplish the temperature goal is the way to go! If one of these stick on then it may be more likely that it will not heat the water enough to kill the tank inhabitants. But then again I would still make sure you had a failsafe in place like I do with a controller in my previous point.

So it's your turn here!

Tell us about how you mitigate the chances of heater failure and tank loss. Help me out by listing some issues that I may have missed or forgotten.

1. Have you ever had a heater fail in some way and what was the results? How did it fail?

2. What are some safeguards you have in place regarding heaters in your aquarium?

3. WHO DO YOU THINK MAKES THE BEST HEATERS and what brand do you use?

I said no, but I just remembered. I bought a titanium heater in the 1980s and went to use it again 2017. It worked for at least 2 or 3 months and it shut off. I better change my vote

Also besides the titanium heaters, I like to use mainly the glass heaters by Ehiem. Connected to a temperature controller . I'll set the temperature on the heater and I'll set the temperature on the controller. never had a catastrophe

 

[batfish5]

Just bought 2 new Hygger heaters,1 is titanium 200 watts HG-802 and the other is quartz 500 watt HG-925. Have not put them in the tanks yet,temps are still nice here in Ohio lol.

 

[LordJoshaeus]

I've had several heaters get stuck on before. Normally it happened on tanks that were not stocked yet, but on one occasion such a problem fatally cooked some Isochrysis cultures I had received just a few days before.