Ink Bird Malfunction!

MileHighSeaLevel · Dec 17, 2020

Yesterday evening I noticed my temperature dropping fairly steadily and it was looking like the heater died. I ran to PetCo, picked up a spare, and hooked it up to the Ink-Bird. It ran for about 6 hours, and then... Nothing. Back up heater down. Double checked my settings on the IB, and everything looked good. Display was operating as normal. Plugged in an outlet tester to the heating outlet, and... Nothing. No power. Plugged the heaters (both the original and backup) into a wall outlet and BOTH were working fine. Incredibly frustrating to have a controller that's supposed to be an added precaution end up being what (almost) crashes your tank. Thankfully I have a Seneye in the display, so I was notified, but still frustrating. I ordered the Ink Bird off Amazon a MONTH ago, on Nov 14th. Really curious to see what customer service says. Has anyone else had this issue?

Biglew11 · Dec 17, 2020

get a ranco controller or one of these (rebranded ranco). everything else is just hobby grade junk. rancos are industrial grade that last forever. i've been using my dual stage aqualogic for 10+ years with zero issues. theres something to be said about being able to buy the same exact model 10 years later.

https://www.marinedepot.com/digital-temperature-controller-single-stage-aqua-logic

https://www.marinedepot.com/digital-temperature-controller-dual-stage-aqua-logic

Adamantium · Dec 17, 2020

Very weird. Glad you got it figured out, though. Clearly just a faulty unit. Contact Inkbird and/or Amazon. Mine have all worked fine for years.

Also, just as a side note, 76.4 is a perfectly fine temperature for a reef tank. My mixed reef sits between 76 and 77 and is very healthy. The real risk in situations like this is the heater staying ON, not off. A tank can go days without a heater, but only hours with one stuck on.

Eagle_Steve · Dec 17, 2020

MileHighSeaLevel said:
Yesterday evening I noticed my temperature dropping fairly steadily and it was looking like the heater died. I ran to PetCo, picked up a spare, and hooked it up to the Ink-Bird. It ran for about 6 hours, and then... Nothing. Back up heater down. Double checked my settings on the IB, and everything looked good. Display was operating as normal. Plugged in an outlet tester to the heating outlet, and... Nothing. No power. Plugged the heaters (both the original and backup) into a wall outlet and BOTH were working fine. Incredibly frustrating to have a controller that's supposed to be an added precaution end up being what (almost) crashes your tank. Thankfully I have a Seneye in the display, so I was notified, but still frustrating. I ordered the Ink Bird off Amazon a MONTH ago, on Nov 14th. Really curious to see what customer service says. Has anyone else had this issue?

I noticed that the heating led is not lit. What do you have your variance set at for high and low?

If that led is not on, then it is not at the point to turn the outlet on. If it is actually internally messed up the it may not light up

Just curious as you pic shows you testing the outlet, but I do not see the light.

LJLKRL05 · Dec 17, 2020

I have one that lasted a couple of years then stopped working. A friend had one and it stopped and inkbird told him to change the probe, so they sent him a new probe and it lasted a little while then stopped again.
Not sure I want to buy probes for mine, I might just buy the ranco.

Eagle_Steve · Dec 17, 2020

Went and snagged a pic of mine for reference.

Hold the “set” button down until you see the settings menu. Then hit set until you get to “Hd”. If want it to heat at 1 degree below your set point it needs to be 1 for that setting.

If it is at 1 and no light when 1 degree below your set point, then the ink bird may have issues.

garbled · Dec 17, 2020

I installed a few of these the other day. The thing that confused me about mine was that you set the heat to, and then the offset. Basically, if you set the heat to to 82, and the offset to 2, then it won't turn on between 80 and 82, it needs to be 79. I kept setting the offset higher and higher and thought my unit was a brick, but, yeah, just did it wrong.

Bepis · Dec 17, 2020

I’ve had my inkbird (the blue one with 2 probes) for about 4 months and it’s working beautifully

MileHighSeaLevel · Dec 18, 2020

Biglew11 said:
get a ranco controller or one of these (rebranded ranco). everything else is just hobby grade junk. rancos are industrial grade that last forever. i've been using my dual stage aqualogic for 10+ years with zero issues. theres something to be said about being able to buy the same exact model 10 years later.

https://www.marinedepot.com/digital-temperature-controller-single-stage-aqua-logic

https://www.marinedepot.com/digital-temperature-controller-dual-stage-aqua-logic

Definitely going to check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!

MileHighSeaLevel · Dec 18, 2020

Adamantium said:
Very weird. Glad you got it figured out, though. Clearly just a faulty unit. Contact Inkbird and/or Amazon. Mine have all worked fine for years.

Also, just as a side note, 76.4 is a perfectly fine temperature for a reef tank. My mixed reef sits between 76 and 77 and is very healthy. The real risk in situations like this is the heater staying ON, not off. A tank can go days without a heater, but only hours with one stuck on.

I'd agree. But it was concerning nonetheless. I'm just glad the Seneye caught the drop and I was able to correct it.

MileHighSeaLevel · Dec 18, 2020

Eagle_Steve said:
Went and snagged a pic of mine for reference.

Hold the “set” button down until you see the settings menu. Then hit set until you get to “Hd”. If want it to heat at 1 degree below your set point it needs to be 1 for that setting.

If it is at 1 and no light when 1 degree below your set point, then the ink bird may have issues.

Exactly what happened. Hd and Cd were set at 1 degree, but heat never kicked on despite being 3+ degrees below the set point.

Eagle_Steve · Dec 18, 2020

MileHighSeaLevel said:
Exactly what happened. Hd and Cd were set at 1 degree, but heat never kicked on despite being 3+ degrees below the set point.

Contact inkbird if still under warranty. Their customer service is great. I screwed up and ordered one for my sons tank and got the one with a metal probe, called them to order a plastic probe, they sent me one no charge.

MileHighSeaLevel · Dec 18, 2020

Eagle_Steve said:
I noticed that the heating led is not lit. What do you have your variance set at for high and low?

If that led is not on, then it is not at the point to turn the outlet on. If it is actually internally messed up the it may not light up

Just curious as you pic shows you testing the outlet, but I do not see the light.

The Hd and Cd were set at 1 degree, so with the temp set at 79, and reading at 76 it definitely should have kicked on.

Adamantium · Dec 18, 2020

Eagle_Steve said:
Contact inkbird if still under warranty. Their customer service is great. I screwed up and ordered one for my sons tank and got the one with a metal probe, called them to order a plastic probe, they sent me one no charge.

Little trick if you still have the metal one, and want to use it: coat it in plastidip. Works like a charm.