I now believe in divine intervention...

[Maximus]

Last night, I was rearranging my power plugs on the Neptune Apex as I took my calcium reactor offline. Mistakingly, I plugged the heater cord into the wrong plug. The plug was for the reactors Eheim pump which is turned on 24/7. I bet you can see where I'm going with this. Now, I use a Finnex titanium heater which is basically turned on all the time if it is plugged in. There is no controller on the heater as I use the Apex to control the temp. This morning I wake up and notice that my temp is 71 degrees. I was puzzled at first and then figured out that the heater was plugged into the wrong Apex outlet. I didn't think much of it so I plugged it into the correct one. During lunch, I came home and found that the temp was still 71. Hmm, that was weird. I took out the heater and found out that it was broken. Now, at this point I am ****** because I have to buy a new heater. What I didn't realize at the time was that if my heater was working, I would have woken up to a dead reef! The heater would have been on all night and would have cooked the tank! I'm telling you, divine intervention at its finest! What were the odds that the heater broke last night and actually saved my tank? Wow!!

 

[Jcr's Reef]

I always get the short end of the stick when "I" do something like that. Lucky

 

[btkrausen]

Oh man, I've had the absolute worst luck with heaters lately. The first heater I bought for my current tank blew up, so when I came home, I had a cracked 40B sump with water leaking out. Then I bought a Eheim-Jagger heater. Worked great for a while, but couldn't keep up with the cold, so I bought a second one to run if it got too cold. After a while, I found I have to move it around for it to turn on, even though the controller shows the outlet is on. I then moved to a Finnex titanium tube through a Finnex controller inline with my Apex. After a while, my Finnex controller just stopped working. So I moved my Finnex straight into the controller, worked great. Now I put the Finnex digital controller on it, and its been working ok since.

When I was in Texas for business, my heater died, so I had my g/f plug in a new heater. Low and behold, like you, she plugged into the wrong Apex outlet, so it never turned on.

Moral of the story, label yoru stuff :) Everything of mine is now labeled with a $20 label maker from Walmart.

 

[m and m]

I always keep a spair heater with all this other high end jumk i dont know why they dont come out with a high end heater. on the other hand you got luckey very luckey.

 

[btkrausen]

I always keep a spair heater with all this other high end jumk i dont know why they dont come out with a high end heater. on the other hand you got luckey very luckey.

I keep a SPARE heater as well, as some of these end up being JUNK. He did get LUCKY, very LUCKY.

 

[Viva'sReef]

IMO the Finnex Titanium is THE high end heater LOL. I had one fail on me after 4 years, luckily I knew it failed because it kept shorting out the PC4 on my RKE. I kept saying to myself great, this PC4 is dead, but I took the few items I had and plugged directly into outlets, plugged the heater and POP. Circut breaker tripped.

Another trick is to run TWO smaller Finnex heaters on seperate PC4's/Circuts (Not sure on your water volume, but it would have to be a couple hundred gallons IMO) This way if one dies or shorts, the other will keep your tank warm enough to not freeze, or vice versa if it sticks ON, it won't cook your tank

 

[Maximus]

Yeah, I do have a spare Ebo Jagr heater and put it on at lunch. Time to order another spare for the spare!

 

[Maximus]

Hmm, I wonder if I should go with another Ebo Jagr or a Finnex titanium? Any thoughts?

 

[raymond]

wow that is good old fashion luck , heater sure are dangerous part of reefing, its probbaly the part i worry about the most

 

[swannyson7]

Hmm, I wonder if I should go with another Ebo Jagr or a Finnex titanium? Any thoughts?

I'm using a Finnex titanium with the built in controller, and it's hooked up through my Apex. It gives me a double failsafe in case the heater sticks on. You should program an alarm on your apex for temp changes outside of a normal hysteresis. That was you can get a text, email, or just the annoying built in alarm if anything is out of order. It's saved my butt a couple times!