Inkbird + titanium heaters = slow to heat up water?

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"I could do that with the glass heaters in the house tank, but the cord would be across the main traffic area and with two dogs, not sure I want to tempt fate." Answer to that; "Jim Dandy Duct tape to the rescue.;Singing" Just tape it to the floor just for a quick check.
I think it's time for some very specific pictures and programming codes as you seem to be jumping back and forth which is confusing to those trying to help. Let's stick to one type of heater in one tank. I know troubleshooting can be difficult especially in the written word format, so no blaming here, let's just start again.;)
 
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Oberst Hajj

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"I could do that with the glass heaters in the house tank, but the cord would be across the main traffic area and with two dogs, not sure I want to tempt fate." Answer to that; "Jim Dandy Duct tape to the rescue.;Singing" Just tape it to the floor just for a quick check.
I think it's time for some very specific pictures and programming codes as you seem to be jumping back and forth which is confusing to those trying to help. Let's stick to one type of heater in one tank. I know troubleshooting can be difficult especially in the written word format, so no blaming here, let's just start again.;)

I see how this could get confusing between the two different tanks and heater types. Going forward I'll discuss each in their own thread and clearly labeled as such....
 
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House Scenario
40g DT with 20g Sump
2x 50w glass aquarium heaters with internal thermostats set to 82° (higher temp for testing purposes only)
Inkbird ITC-306T controlling both heaters.

When plugged into the Inkbird, these two heaters always have their little orange lights on and the "Work1" light on the Inkbird is always on as well. I believe the Work1 light just indicates that the Day time mode is active and the Work2 light would come on in Night time mode (which I have disabled, so Work1 is always on). So, I don't think the Inkbird gives any indication at all as to the outlets being on or off.

Yesterday evening the Inkbird was reading 74.x° with both heaters plug into it. I unplugged the heaters from the Inkbird and plugged them directly into the wall outlet. This morning the temp had dropped 2° and the heater's orange lights were both on. This leads me to believe that these two 50w heaters (cheap Amazon units) just can not keep up with the overnight temp changes. I'll see how they do during the day time with higher temps in the house.
 
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Workshop Scenario
150g stock tank
2x 300w Finnex titanium heating elements
Inkbird ITC-306T controlling both heaters.

Last night when plugged into the Inkbird, these heating elements had brought the water temp up to 76.x°. I unplugged them from the Inkbird and plugged them directly into the wall outlet. This morning the water temp was 77.x°. The increase was so small, I can't not really say if the increase would have happened had they been still controlled via the Inkbird.
 
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Workshop Scenario
150g stock tank
2x 300w Finnex titanium heating elements
Inkbird ITC-306T controlling both heaters.

Hold the phone! I thought you said they dont have internal thermostats? are they "heaters" or "heating elements"?

You are correct, they are the heating elements you linked to, not heaters. I should have used the correct nomenclature. I'm usually better at doing that.[/b]
 
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alysak6075

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Ok this clears things up a lot more.
I cant say anything about the house heaters. Seems like not enough power there.

The workshop heaters are a surprise however. Are they new? Were they used in other tanks before? The reason i ask is: if they are covered with calcium deposits this would explain their inability to raise water temps.

Does the tank have a lid? Some pictures would be very helpful. If you can get your hands on a kill-a-watt it would be awesome to see if the heating elements actually pull the power they are rated for.

In comparison: I heat a 220Gallon marineland tank with a 39 trigger sump in a basement that is usually 67-68F and 1 BRS branded Schego 600W heating element and it was 0 trouble keeping the temp at what I set it to, but the tank has lids to control jumpers and stop evap. So that may be a part of it as well.

I also have a finnex titanium heater with its own thermostat, and something is odd about it, its 200W and is struggling to bring about 40 gallons of water to set temp. While a 200W heater "Aqueon Pro" has no issue. So maybe they are underrated.
 
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Ok this clears things up a lot more.
I cant say anything about the house heaters. Seems like not enough power there.

The workshop heaters are a surprise however. Are they new? Were they used in other tanks before? The reason i ask is: if they are covered with calcium deposits this would explain their inability to raise water temps.

Does the tank have a lid? Some pictures would be very helpful. If you can get your hands on a kill-a-watt it would be awesome to see if the heating elements actually pull the power they are rated for.

In comparison: I heat a 220Gallon marineland tank with a 39 trigger sump in a basement that is usually 67-68F and 1 BRS branded Schego 600W heating element and it was 0 trouble keeping the temp at what I set it to, but the tank has lids to control jumpers and stop evap. So that may be a part of it as well.

I also have a finnex titanium heater with its own thermostat, and something is odd about it, its 200W and is struggling to bring about 40 gallons of water to set temp. While a 200W heater "Aqueon Pro" has no issue. So maybe they are underrated.

Workshop Scenario
150g stock tank
2x 300w Finnex titanium heating elements
Inkbird ITC-306T controlling both heaters.

The Finnex are brand new and the stock tank does not have a lid. It is also quite possible that the workshop ambient air temp drop into the high 50s at night and they are just struggling to keep up. I'm tempted to put one of them in the house 40g tank and see what it does in there.

It is interesting that your Finnex seems to be weak as well.
 

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Workshop Scenario
150g stock tank
2x 300w Finnex titanium heating elements
Inkbird ITC-306T controlling both heaters.

The Finnex are brand new and the stock tank does not have a lid. It is also quite possible that the workshop ambient air temp drop into the high 50s at night and they are just struggling to keep up. I'm tempted to put one of them in the house 40g tank and see what it does in there.

It is interesting that your Finnex seems to be weak as well.
yep no lids and low air temp might be your answer.
 

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"I believe the Work1 light just indicates that the Day time mode is active and the Work2 light would come on in Night time mode (which I have disabled, so Work1 is always on). So, I don't think the Inkbird gives any indication at all as to the outlets being on or off."
On page 5, sections 3 & 4 of the manual it states that "When the light is on, start heating." So I take that to mean that the lights only come on while the heating elements are energized. (You could try lowering the setpoint to a value less than the current tank temperature to verify this.)
So how can I ask this politely, have you read and understood their manual? (Please don't take offense to this.) I've read it, several times over, and it is not the easiest thing to follow. There are some you tube videos that make it easier to understand. But I'm going with the scenario where you have it set up right.

House Scenario
40g DT with 20g Sump
2x 50w glass aquarium heaters with internal thermostats set to 82° (higher temp for testing purposes only)
Inkbird ITC-306T controlling both heaters

A good Jager 50w heater is only good for around 7-16 gallons, so even two of those are too under powered to do much good for a 60 gallon system.

Workshop Scenario
150g stock tank
2x 300w Finnex titanium heating elements
Inkbird ITC-306T controlling both heaters.

300w Finnex titanium heating elements are rated at 40 to 80 gallons, so you are at the maximum abilities of these heaters. With a glass tank in a cold workshop, it will take a long time to get the tank up to the desired temperature and then they will have to work hard to maintain that.
Hope this helps!:)
 
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"I believe the Work1 light just indicates that the Day time mode is active and the Work2 light would come on in Night time mode (which I have disabled, so Work1 is always on). So, I don't think the Inkbird gives any indication at all as to the outlets being on or off."
On page 5, sections 3 & 4 of the manual it states that "When the light is on, start heating." So I take that to mean that the lights only come on while the heating elements are energized. (You could try lowering the setpoint to a value less than the current tank temperature to verify this.)
So how can I ask this politely, have you read and understood their manual? (Please don't take offense to this.) I've read it, several times over, and it is not the easiest thing to follow. There are some you tube videos that make it easier to understand. But I'm going with the scenario where you have it set up right.

I have read it a couple of times, as it takes a couple of times to understand it! lol As you suggested, I've set the temp lower a few days ago and the Work1 light never went out. I'll try it again with no heaters/elements plugged in and see what it does.

House Scenario
40g DT with 20g Sump
2x 50w glass aquarium heaters with internal thermostats set to 82° (higher temp for testing purposes only)
Inkbird ITC-306T controlling both heaters

A good Jager 50w heater is only good for around 7-16 gallons, so even two of those are too under powered to do much good for a 60 gallon system.

I agree this is probably the issue here. I run a single 100w Jager on my 60g+20 in the house and it is more then capable of over heating that tank.

Workshop Scenario
150g stock tank
2x 300w Finnex titanium heating elements
Inkbird ITC-306T controlling both heaters.

300w Finnex titanium heating elements are rated at 40 to 80 gallons, so you are at the maximum abilities of these heaters. With a glass tank in a cold workshop, it will take a long time to get the tank up to the desired temperature and then they will have to work hard to maintain that.
Hope this helps!:)

The stock tank is one of the thick black Rubbermaid tanks, so not glass. But still a large surface area making contact with the air. Maybe I was just expecting 600w to easily heat ~140g of water (I have rocks in there) since a 100w handles my 60g-20g cube.

I think I will put one of the 300w in a 10g tank in the shop on an Inkbird and see what happens. I'll do the same in the house on the 40g+20g (after removing the twin 50w heaters) and test that one as well.
 

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:oops:Stock Tank ;Facepalm DOH! Now I get it! LOL! This is where a picture (1,000 words) would help me.;Playful I hope it's not sitting directly on a cement floor. That would really suck the heat out!
I'd be interested in what you find out about those lights as to whether they are related to the day/night mode or the power on/off mode.
 
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:oops:Stock Tank ;Facepalm DOH! Now I get it! LOL! This is where a picture (1,000 words) would help me.;Playful I hope it's not sitting directly on a cement floor. That would really suck the heat out!
I'd be interested in what you find out about those lights as to whether they are related to the day/night mode or the power on/off mode.

Crap, I did not even thing about it sitting on the cement floor!
 
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Oberst Hajj

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I'd be interested in what you find out about those lights as to whether they are related to the day/night mode or the power on/off mode.
House Scenario
So this morning I lowered the target temp on Inkbird ( the Inkbird temp probe is still in the water and the heaters are still plugged directly into the wall outlet) to below the current water temp. The Work1 light did turn off. That means if that light is on, it is suppling power to its outlets.

Workshop Scenario
I'm pretty sure at this point that the dual 300w heaters just can't keep up out in the workshop. This morning they read 77.1°. As a final test before I start moving heaters around and ordering larger ones, I turned the Inkbird target temp up to 120° and will see how high the water temp gets. If the heaters are too weak for the conditions out there, the temp should not go up at all. If it goes up well past 78°, then they should be able to reach and maintain that temp when the Inkbird is set to 78°.
 
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Workshop Scenario
We had warmer temps these last two days and the dual 300w Finnex were able to raise the stock tank temp up over 80°, so it is just a matter of them not being able to keep up. So this morning I placed an order for two 500w Finnex heating elements. I'm going to run a 500w and 300w and see how that does.
 
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Oberst Hajj

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Workshop Scenario
For those that were following this, a 300w and 500w were able to keep the temps much closer to 78° regardless of the room temps in the shop. I've since switched it to two 500w heating elements and they can keep the tank in the mid 80s without issue.
 
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