My Heater died last night!!!

[peffy03]

Here is how i made it uneventful thanks to the forums here on R2R

• The equipment used
  • main heater (the one that failed) - Aquatop 500W
  • Spare heater (new in box) - Hygger 500W
  • Seneye
  • Inkbird

The first thing ill say is fundamentally, heaters are wear items. They fail, they always will fail. This is why and how they fail:
Relay failure - the relay turns the heater on or off. When it fails, the heater will either be stuck on or it will be stuck off
Probe failure - the probe tells the relay when to turn on or off, if the probe fails the unit will hold the tank at a different temperature
element failure - the element is the part that heats the water, if it fails it doesnt produce heat.

Heres how I setup my equipment:
Main heater is set to 80 degrees, and plugged into to the inkbird. the inkbird is set to turn the heater OFF if the tank gets over 82 degrees. The inkbird has its own probe that is separate from the main heater probe. The seneye is installed in the tank and is set to alert me if the tank goes under 78 or over 82.

Heres what happens with my setup in a heater failure:

Scenario 1: heater fails "ON" - in this scenario my heater will heat the tank until it reaches 82 degrees. Once it reaches 82 degrees the inkbird will disconnect power to the heater. This will stop heating the tank until the tank goes back below 82 degrees. The seneye will alert me so that I can deal with / monitor the situation

Scenario 2: heater fails "OFF" - this is what happened last night. My heater stopped heating, my seneye alerted me at 4 am that the water was 77.8 degrees. I checked my heater which was "on" and the element was cold (element failure). I replaced the heater with my spare unit. It started heating and i went back to bed.

Today I will get a new "spare" 500w heater for the next time one fails.

 

[Reef.]

Here is how i made it uneventful thanks to the forums here on R2R

• The equipment used
  • main heater (the one that failed) - Aquatop 500W
  • Spare heater (new in box) - Hygger 500W
  • Seneye
  • Inkbird

The first thing ill say is fundamentally, heaters are wear items. They fail, they always will fail. This is why and how they fail:
Relay failure - the relay turns the heater on or off. When it fails, the heater will either be stuck on or it will be stuck off
Probe failure - the probe tells the relay when to turn on or off, if the probe fails the unit will hold the tank at a different temperature
element failure - the element is the part that heats the water, if it fails it doesnt produce heat.

Heres how I setup my equipment:
Main heater is set to 80 degrees, and plugged into to the inkbird. the inkbird is set to turn the heater OFF if the tank gets over 82 degrees. The inkbird has its own probe that is separate from the main heater probe. The seneye is installed in the tank and is set to alert me if the tank goes under 78 or over 82.

Heres what happens with my setup in a heater failure:

Scenario 1: heater fails "ON" - in this scenario my heater will heat the tank until it reaches 82 degrees. Once it reaches 82 degrees the inkbird will disconnect power to the heater. This will stop heating the tank until the tank goes back below 82 degrees. The seneye will alert me so that I can deal with / monitor the situation

Scenario 2: heater fails "OFF" - this is what happened last night. My heater stopped heating, my seneye alerted me at 4 am that the water was 77.8 degrees. I checked my heater which was "on" and the element was cold (element failure). I replaced the heater with my spare unit. It started heating and i went back to bed.

Today I will get a new "spare" 500w heater for the next time one fails.

All good points but you have missed one of the main heater redundancies, which is to have 2 heaters in the tank.

 

[peffy03]

All good points but you have missed one of the main heater redundancies, which is to have 2 heaters in the tank.

I thought about adding this redundancy. I was always worried about the constant on/off of a second heater, but i suppose i could set it 1 or 2 degrees lower than the main unit.

 

[Reef.]

I thought about adding this redundancy. I was always worried about the constant on/off of a second heater, but i suppose i could set it 1 or 2 degrees lower than the main unit.

you could use the inkbird to control the heating and use the heater’s thermostat as the safe guard by setting it slightly higher than the tank temp, do this if you are worried about the heater failing by turning on and off. The inkbird may have better internals? It’s how I run mine.

But heaters are designed to do this, it’s also recommended to change your heater yearly anyway.

And remember if it does fail you have another to step in.

 

[peffy03]

But heaters are designed to do this, it’s also recommended to change your heater yearly anyway.

My plan was to change every 12 mo. My aquatop lasted 6.

 

[HaveFishWillTravel]

Pretty sweet story! Sure beats having your heater fail in the middle of the night and not know it and have your tank be cold the next morning. I also have a spare set up ready to go. I have been caught too many times without. Thank you for sharing.

 

[BiggieJohn]

you might want to consider multiple smaller heaters instead of 1 huge one. the switching currents for a 500w heater will almost guarantee a short life

 

[Thomas Danho]

My plan was to change every 12 mo. My aquatop lasted 6.

Why not just get one that lasts forever? Have you seen the innovative marines smart heater? After tons of research, it does seem like the smartest option. I placed my order last night and it arrives today... I let you know my thoughts.

 

[HaveFishWillTravel]

All good points but you have missed one of the main heater redundancies, which is to have 2 heaters in the tank.

Here is how i made it uneventful thanks to the forums here on R2R

• The equipment used
  • main heater (the one that failed) - Aquatop 500W
  • Spare heater (new in box) - Hygger 500W
  • Seneye
  • Inkbird

The first thing ill say is fundamentally, heaters are wear items. They fail, they always will fail. This is why and how they fail:
Relay failure - the relay turns the heater on or off. When it fails, the heater will either be stuck on or it will be stuck off
Probe failure - the probe tells the relay when to turn on or off, if the probe fails the unit will hold the tank at a different temperature
element failure - the element is the part that heats the water, if it fails it doesnt produce heat.

Heres how I setup my equipment:
Main heater is set to 80 degrees, and plugged into to the inkbird. the inkbird is set to turn the heater OFF if the tank gets over 82 degrees. The inkbird has its own probe that is separate from the main heater probe. The seneye is installed in the tank and is set to alert me if the tank goes under 78 or over 82.

Heres what happens with my setup in a heater failure:

Scenario 1: heater fails "ON" - in this scenario my heater will heat the tank until it reaches 82 degrees. Once it reaches 82 degrees the inkbird will disconnect power to the heater. This will stop heating the tank until the tank goes back below 82 degrees. The seneye will alert me so that I can deal with / monitor the situation

Scenario 2: heater fails "OFF" - this is what happened last night. My heater stopped heating, my seneye alerted me at 4 am that the water was 77.8 degrees. I checked my heater which was "on" and the element was cold (element failure). I replaced the heater with my spare unit. It started heating and i went back to bed.

Today I will get a new "spare" 500w heater for the next time one fails.

Here is how i made it uneventful thanks to the forums here on R2R

• The equipment used
  • main heater (the one that failed) - Aquatop 500W
  • Spare heater (new in box) - Hygger 500W
  • Seneye
  • Inkbird

The first thing ill say is fundamentally, heaters are wear items. They fail, they always will fail. This is why and how they fail:
Relay failure - the relay turns the heater on or off. When it fails, the heater will either be stuck on or it will be stuck off
Probe failure - the probe tells the relay when to turn on or off, if the probe fails the unit will hold the tank at a different temperature
element failure - the element is the part that heats the water, if it fails it doesnt produce heat.

Heres how I setup my equipment:
Main heater is set to 80 degrees, and plugged into to the inkbird. the inkbird is set to turn the heater OFF if the tank gets over 82 degrees. The inkbird has its own probe that is separate from the main heater probe. The seneye is installed in the tank and is set to alert me if the tank goes under 78 or over 82.

Heres what happens with my setup in a heater failure:

Scenario 1: heater fails "ON" - in this scenario my heater will heat the tank until it reaches 82 degrees. Once it reaches 82 degrees the inkbird will disconnect power to the heater. This will stop heating the tank until the tank goes back below 82 degrees. The seneye will alert me so that I can deal with / monitor the situation

Scenario 2: heater fails "OFF" - this is what happened last night. My heater stopped heating, my seneye alerted me at 4 am that the water was 77.8 degrees. I checked my heater which was "on" and the element was cold (element failure). I replaced the heater with my spare unit. It started heating and i went back to bed.

Today I will get a new "spare" 500w heater for the next time one fails.

As of this post and after the discussion, I now have an Apex Neptune for my Saltwater aquarium which has a temperature probe that sends an alarm if the temp goes below or above set min/max and 2 heaters for redundancy in my saltwater aquarium and also in my 3 freshwater aquariums. For the price of heaters, it seems to me, “Better Safe Than Sorry”.

 

[HaveFishWillTravel]

As of this post and after the discussion, I now have an Apex Neptune for my Saltwater aquarium which has a temperature probe that sends an alarm if the temp goes below or above set min/max and 2 heaters for redundancy in my saltwater aquarium and also in my 3 freshwater aquariums. For the price of heaters, it seems to me, “Better Safe Than Sorry”.

 

[lelandmarine]

Smart to have the redundancy. I agree two heaters is better than one. I’ve even thought about having a small third heater on smart plug so that if I get a message from inkbird that there’s a problem I can remotely turn on the third heater.

 

[Reef.]

Smart to have the redundancy. I agree two heaters is better than one. I’ve even thought about having a small third heater on smart plug so that if I get a message from inkbird that there’s a problem I can remotely turn on the third heater.

Depends how soon you can get back home, if on holiday for 2 weeks then it could be worth doing.

The danger with heating is over heating not under heating, a tank can go a good few hours with no heat, but only a hour or two over heating, if the room is a reasonable temp, then turning the heat up in the room is a good option too.

When buying fish and corals online they can be in transit for 24-48 hours with very little heat.

The chances of two heaters failing is small, and even if they did it probably wouldn’t be a disaster.

 

[lelandmarine]

Inkbird model with Wi-Fi built-in is also a nice feature. You can get alarms and adjust it Remotely