Hydros vs Inkbird for heater control
- Thread starter Tinklez
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Mebbid
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With the hydros using mechanical switches in the outlets, I would personally use an inkbird and run it through the hydros with the hydros alerting you.
It's only a matter of time before a mechanical switch wears out (especially as often as a heater cycles) and I prefer to have at minimum 2 points of failure before something can seriously go wrong with the heater. 3 would be even better and inkbirds are fairly cheap.
It's only a matter of time before a mechanical switch wears out (especially as often as a heater cycles) and I prefer to have at minimum 2 points of failure before something can seriously go wrong with the heater. 3 would be even better and inkbirds are fairly cheap.
Inkbird temp probe failed on me after a month, just started beeping like crazy one day no matter what I did, and I had to replace the probe. Hydros I've had 0 issues with, but I do have 2 temp probes (one in DT, one in sump) just to be sure.
Hydros just alerting me would not be enough, especially if I'm travelling. I need to be able to turn the heater on and off remotely. The heater doesn't/shouldn't cycle nearly often enough to be worried about mechanical switches failing. On two of my tanks, both heaters cycle 5-7 times a day max, with 1 degree tolerance.
Hydros just alerting me would not be enough, especially if I'm travelling. I need to be able to turn the heater on and off remotely. The heater doesn't/shouldn't cycle nearly often enough to be worried about mechanical switches failing. On two of my tanks, both heaters cycle 5-7 times a day max, with 1 degree tolerance.
Mr. Mojo Rising
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I've been using the hydros system to control my heating for the past 4 years, no issue's yet. My oldest inkbird (on another system) is also 4 years old, I'm waiting to see which one lasts longer.
Tinklez
Active Member
Thanks for the advice everyone. It sounds like people really do a little bit of both. And there’s not really a clear consensus of which one is better. Has anyone ever had the Hydro fail on them?
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Have you looked into a Helio? They are the best option for heater imo. Includes controller and failsafes and all. With probes and controller, they're reasonably priced as well.
BoonieMoe
Active Member
Do you need a hydros temp probe to control the inkbird & heaters through hydros?
I’ve seen people say they set their ink bird .5 degrees lower & higher than the hydros set point for redundancy
I’ve seen people say they set their ink bird .5 degrees lower & higher than the hydros set point for redundancy
Inkbird plugged into Hydros. Hydros warns if Inkbird goes out of range and shuts off inkbird.
Better yet:
1. Helio plugged into Hydros 76-78 degrees, target 77
2. Inkbird plugged into Hydros, target 75-79 degrees
3. Hydros warning at 80 and 74 degrees. Shut down heaters at 80.
If Helio fails, Inkbird is backup (if heater stops working), if both fail or one keep heating, shut them both down.
Better yet:
1. Helio plugged into Hydros 76-78 degrees, target 77
2. Inkbird plugged into Hydros, target 75-79 degrees
3. Hydros warning at 80 and 74 degrees. Shut down heaters at 80.
If Helio fails, Inkbird is backup (if heater stops working), if both fail or one keep heating, shut them both down.
winxp_man
So Many Tanks, So Little Time
A few years back my brother had two inkbirds go bad on him. We now run Ranco ETC controllers on the Neptune power bar.
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BoonieMoe
Active Member
@Connor At CoralVue do I need a hydros temp sensor to control the inkbird & heaters in this manner & to achieve the redundancy protection?
I am huge on redundancy and I have always gone heater to inkbird to controller and plan to follow that same philosophy when I finish setting up my Hydros system. Set Hydros temp +/-1 degree outside the inkbird's range and I use preset heaters as I believe they have less fail points as they don't need seals/openings for the dial so one less point of failure in my eyes.
I'm super excited to use the power monitoring aspect as my current old school RKE doesn't really have ability to monitor stuff real time and I will set up an alert if the wattage goes too high.
I'm super excited to use the power monitoring aspect as my current old school RKE doesn't really have ability to monitor stuff real time and I will set up an alert if the wattage goes too high.
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@Connor At CoralVue wasnt properly tagged. So he probably hasn't seen this yet(it's finicky sometimes)
n2585722
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I use heaters that have their own thermostats. I set their thermostats about 3 degrees higher than the turn off set point in the Hydros output settings. I have 2 heaters on different outlets on my XP8. The XP8 also has power monitoring and since I use 50 watt heaters I have the safe power range set to 45-55 watts. So if one of the heaters does shut off for some reason when the Hydros has them powered I will get an alert. I have been using this method since I got my Hydros controllers at the tank so it has been a few years now. If you use the InkBird then use it for control and set the Hydros turn on and turn off temp settings above those set on the InkBird. I would always have a backup off for any heater.
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