IM 25 Gallon Lagoon Helio Elements Placement

[Thresher's Reef]

Hey y'all! I need some help due to running into a wall while building my first reef tank. I have the Innovative Marine 25 gallon lagoon and bought a Helio 2x100w smart heater setup, but I am having trouble figuring out the best place to place both elements because I would like redundancy. My setup is running the standard 326 gph mightyjet pump that comes with the AIO which makes it where the only way I can put one of the elements in the return chamber area is vertically which scares me if the water level ever drops for any reason. If the element holder that comes with the controller wasn't so large, I would most likely be able to place one horizontally directly behind the return pump.
My plans for the filtration area (from left to right) are:
1st chamber-IM caddy with floss and carbon after cycling
2nd chamber-InTank fuge basket (in hopes of creating a refugium w/ chaeto one day)
return chamber-326 GPH IM MightyJet return pump
3rd chamber- trying to leave open in case of need for protein skimmer or media reactor one day
last chamber- InTank media basket mirroring other side with floss and carbon

How can I get both elements in comfortably with this setup? If anybody has these elements and system w/ the IM 25 Gallon Lagoon, I would love pics to get an idea please! I unfortunately do not have pics yet and I am not currently home to take any to show what I am talking about so I apologize for that as well.
Thanks in advance everybody!

 

[SliceGolfer]

I would mount the heaters horizontally in the return pump chamber. Place the return pump on top of the heaters. Yes, this is the chamber where evaporation will occur. If you have an ATO, and you will likely run the water level higher to avoid splashing noise, so between these two you should be fine. It would take two days minimum to evaporate to a point where someone would notice the noise coming from the tank. If this chamber gets too low anyway, the return will be sucking air and injecting bubbles in the display. Be careful with too many nutrient export methods with a small volume of water. I haven't experienced much success with a refugium in an AIO but a skimmer works nicely.

 

[OutColdCRNA]

I have run my heater in the return chamber for years. As long as you have an Ato should be fine

 

[Thresher's Reef]

I have run my heater in the return chamber for years. As long as you have an Ato should be fine

You don't think I will have any issues with the heater sitting vertically in terms of water level there as well?

 

[Thresher's Reef]

I would mount the heaters horizontally in the return pump chamber. Place the return pump on top of the heaters. Yes, this is the chamber where evaporation will occur. If you have an ATO, and you will likely run the water level higher to avoid splashing noise, so between these two you should be fine. It would take two days minimum to evaporate to a point where someone would notice the noise coming from the tank. If this chamber gets too low anyway, the return will be sucking air and injecting bubbles in the display. Be careful with too many nutrient export methods with a small volume of water. I haven't experienced much success with a refugium in an AIO but a skimmer works nicely.

Just out of curiosity, could I just lay the heaters in that chamber without using the mount? Is that a bad practice? Would it mess up the pump in any way from touching?

 

[OutColdCRNA]

You don't think I will have any issues with the heater sitting vertically in terms of water level there as well?

My heater is a neotherm but has run vertically without issue for about 5 years. As long as it’s covered with water vertical or horizontal shouldn’t matter

 

[robotrash]

Just a couple notes to add to others. While you shouldn't run them out of water, titanium heaters are a lot more resilient than the glass heaters that came before. Also the Helios monitor is very good at detecting out of water heaters and shutting them down. You'll actually want to be more careful with the therm placement as it needs to detect flow to be functional. Therm out of water and low flow near therm will cause the Helios controller to show errors. Low flow will self correct but out of water has to be corrected with a reboot in my experience.

 

[Thresher's Reef]

My heater is a neotherm but has run vertically without issue for about 5 years. As long as it’s covered with water vertical or horizontal shouldn’t matter

I've seen a lot of people using the neotherms and thought about getting those at one point. They seem like great heaters! I'll post some pics when I get home tonight showing what my heater looks like in the return chamber reassurance for my brain lol

 

[Thresher's Reef]

Just a couple notes to add to others. While you shouldn't run them out of water, titanium heaters are a lot more resilient than the glass heaters that came before. Also the Helios monitor is very good at detecting out of water heaters and shutting them down. You'll actually want to be more careful with the therm placement as it needs to detect flow to be functional. Therm out of water and low flow near therm will cause the Helios controller to show errors. Low flow will self correct but out of water has to be corrected with a reboot in my experience.

Interesting! I am new to the hobby and somebody told me that I should use titanium elements because of what you said, hence why I chose the Helio PTC elements with the controller.

 

[Thresher's Reef]

I have also heard of people using just a floss holder in one of the outside intake chambers and putting a heater underneath in that chamber as well. Would it be acceptable, for redundancy, to install the 2nd element this way and just set it to 73 or so so that it only turns on in the case of the primary failing or turning off due to low water level for any reason?

 

[Thresher's Reef]

Is this safe to have the heater touching the return pump? This is the only way I can really put the heater in the return chamber as low as it will go...

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

In my Nuvo 15 I have the Helio heating element in the second chamber . The return chamber is where I have my skimmer

Been this way for about a year now.

It is mounted vertically. You will get error codes if the element doesn’t sense flow.

 

[OutColdCRNA]

Does that heater have a separate temperature probe? If not the internal thermostat on the heater may be sensing an increased temp because of heat created from the return pump.

 

[robotrash]

Does that heater have a separate temperature probe? If not the internal thermostat on the heater may be sensing an increased temp because of heat created from the return pump.

They do have a remote probe

 

[Thresher's Reef]

Does that heater have a separate temperature probe? If not the internal thermostat on the heater may be sensing an increased temp because of heat created from the return pump.

Yes it does have a remote probe like @robotrash said

 

[tautog83]

Me personally would just use one heater for now and keep other one as backup.. with the ptc controller..hydros inkbirds , apex you have a lot of options to help with heater failures especially when real estate is tight . For the cost of that secind heater you can use inkbird and ptc for piece of mind .