Selecting two heaters to help safeguard against "stuck on" issues

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

Hi. I currently have a tank with ~ 70 gallons total volume that I heat with a 200watt heater (I know this may not be enough in the winter but was ok for spring/summer). The heater is old and I am afraid it will fail in the "on" position, so I want to buy 2-3 cobalt heaters to heat the tank instead.

My goal is to make it so that one of the two or three heaters failing in the "on" position won't cook the tank. If that is possible, what wattages should I buy? 2x150 watt? 3x 100 watt? My home is heated to ~68 degrees on the coldest days and I keep the tank at 79, so it needs to raise 11 degrees in the winter...

Thanks for any input you may have

 

[Cment]

you're probably better off just getting a temp probe of some sort, whether its through a controller like an apex or stand alone. This is what I do with 2 heaters for my system and if either get stuck in the on position my apex shuts them down if over the set temp.

 

[mcarroll]

A backup controller isn't a terrible idea, but it's also another potential failure point.

I like the simple strategy of having a single, right-sized heater in every tank on the system. That keeps any of them from having to work to hard OR being big enough to fry the whole system....and it keeps me from worrying about the heaters.

I'd select Marineland or Eheim myself....the highest quality traditional glass heaters, IMO. Lifetime warranty on the Marineland is nice and these are mostly what I've used over the years. Experiments with other brands and non-glass heaters have been disappointing...even from those brands.

 

[ebushrow]

If you really wanted to go overboard, I would agree that having an apex or proflux 4 control one and a separate heater and temp controller there for the back up. With the temp controller, if it gets stuck on, the controller either turns it on or off so it is not an issue.JMO

 

[bhuyett]

Like others have said, I also use a Controller (Apex Neptune Classic) and have a Titanium heater. They are much more efficient as they take less time to heat up and get to temp. Which allows you to run a much tighter range to turn on and off. I also hear Glass heaters if ran like this will wear out much faster and fail for sure if they have the manual contacts.