WARNING TO FELLOW REEFERS!

[Sabra616]

I had 2 major issues with 2 well known companies that we use in this hobby and I want to share my experience as a caution to all that read this.

Yesterday I put a new blade on my flipper to clean my glass and after a few scrapes I noticed that the blade was scratching my glass. It now looks like a cat attacked the front of my tank. I have used this flipper for years on this tank and change the blade regularly to prevent this. This time the new blade did not work in my favor. I do not know if there is a way to test blades before use but if you can please do.

This morning I wake up to dead fish and corals on my other system. I touch the tank it is hot it was at 98 F. My inkbird that is only 6 months old did not alert me to the high temp. I have the alert set at 80 F and the tank temp sits at 78. I do not know why the ink bird failed. When I turned the power off to figure out the issue and turned it back on the inkbird then alarmed high temp. A little to late.

Im not sure what I could have done to prevent either of these issues. Any suggestions are welcome.

R.I.P- Phil,Lil,Wario

 

[RoanokeReef]

Had the same issue with Flipper, switched to Tunze and knock on wood no issues ... yet.

 

[Dread Pirate Dave]

I had 2 major issues with 2 well known companies that we use in this hobby and I want to share my experience as a caution to all that read this.

Yesterday I put a new blade on my flipper to clean my glass and after a few scrapes I noticed that the blade was scratching my glass. It now looks like a cat attacked the front of my tank. I have used this flipper for years on this tank and change the blade regularly to prevent this. This time the new blade did not work in my favor. I do not know if there is a way to test blades before use but if you can please do.

This morning I wake up to dead fish and corals on my other system. I touch the tank it is hot it was at 98 F. My inkbird that is only 6 months old did not alert me to the high temp. I have the alert set at 80 F and the tank temp sits at 78. I do not know why the ink bird failed. When I turned the power off to figure out the issue and turned it back on the inkbird then alarmed high temp. A little to late.

Im not sure what I could have done to prevent either of these issues. Any suggestions are welcome.

R.I.P- Phil,Lil,Wario

Inkbirds do fail. You need redundant protection with heaters. My inkbird controls two separate heaters that have been set to 78 degrees. If the inkbird fails to prevent overheating then the heaters should stop themselves. You could also use another monitor like hydros to check that the inkbird isn't out of bounds.

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

I'm sorry to hear about both of the issues. But yeah, like the person above, you need to have had your heaters set to a certain temp (mine are 82 so it doesn't mess with the ink birds function). This way if the Inkbird fails, hopefully your heaters would stop heating the water at the degree you set it so it won't cook your tank. Any piece of equipment can fail in your tank, never will there be a piece of equipment that will run reliably forever. Again, I'm so sorry to hear about what you went through.

 

[Sabra616]

Inkbirds do fail. You need redundant protection with heaters. My inkbird controls two separate heaters that have been set to 78 degrees. If the inkbird fails to prevent overheating then the heaters should stop themselves. You could also use another monitor like hydros to check that the inkbird isn't out of bounds.

I'm sorry to hear about both of the issues. But yeah, like the person above, you need to have had your heaters set to a certain temp (mine are 82 so it doesn't mess with the ink birds function). This way if the Inkbird fails, hopefully your heaters would stop heating the water at the degree you set it so it won't cook your tank. Any piece of equipment can fail in your tank, never will there be a piece of equipment that will run reliably forever. Again, I'm so sorry to hear about what you went through.

Thank you. Im confident the heaters did not fail as they were not on or hot to the touch when I checked them. I think my uv sterilizer caused the over heat and the inkbird did not alarm to going above temp range. Anyways lesson learned I will be ordering a Apex or Hydros.

 

[CBonito]

I had 2 major issues with 2 well known companies that we use in this hobby and I want to share my experience as a caution to all that read this.

Yesterday I put a new blade on my flipper to clean my glass and after a few scrapes I noticed that the blade was scratching my glass. It now looks like a cat attacked the front of my tank. I have used this flipper for years on this tank and change the blade regularly to prevent this. This time the new blade did not work in my favor. I do not know if there is a way to test blades before use but if you can please do.

This morning I wake up to dead fish and corals on my other system. I touch the tank it is hot it was at 98 F. My inkbird that is only 6 months old did not alert me to the high temp. I have the alert set at 80 F and the tank temp sits at 78. I do not know why the ink bird failed. When I turned the power off to figure out the issue and turned it back on the inkbird then alarmed high temp. A little to late.

Im not sure what I could have done to prevent either of these issues. Any suggestions are welcome.

R.I.P- Phil,Lil,Wario

I was Inkbirded really good as well. Luckily I didnt lose anything.
I control my heat with Apex now.

 

[cdemoss01]

I use fluvals. Only had one incident

 

[Jasonak]

I had 2 major issues with 2 well known companies that we use in this hobby and I want to share my experience as a caution to all that read this.

Yesterday I put a new blade on my flipper to clean my glass and after a few scrapes I noticed that the blade was scratching my glass. It now looks like a cat attacked the front of my tank. I have used this flipper for years on this tank and change the blade regularly to prevent this. This time the new blade did not work in my favor. I do not know if there is a way to test blades before use but if you can please do.

This morning I wake up to dead fish and corals on my other system. I touch the tank it is hot it was at 98 F. My inkbird that is only 6 months old did not alert me to the high temp. I have the alert set at 80 F and the tank temp sits at 78. I do not know why the ink bird failed. When I turned the power off to figure out the issue and turned it back on the inkbird then alarmed high temp. A little to late.

Im not sure what I could have done to prevent either of these issues. Any suggestions are welcome.

R.I.P- Phil,Lil,Wario

Man! I thought I had just some how got something under my blade, or dinged it or something I had similar exp with a tunze blade. New blade working away and then noticed I had a bunch of new scratches all over the glass. It never occurred to me that it could have been the new blade. I dont feel as dumb now at least.

 

[JayM]

Buy a Ranco if you want worry free temp control forever.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Had the same issue with Flipper, switched to Tunze and knock on wood no issues ... yet.

I've never once had issues with my Tunze either!

 

[Reign1]

Buy a Ranco if you want worry free temp control forever.

Yes they are reall good. Used to control my chiller for 450 on this.

 

[JumboShrimp]

I certainly feel your pain. I cooked every fish in two (2) 150-gallon FOWLRs this year in "The Great Heater Disaster of 2025." (All my fault though; I let each temperature probe hang out of water overnight when I went to bed, half-way through tank maintenance.)

 

[Sabra616]

I certainly feel your pain. I cooked every fish in two (2) 150-gallon FOWLRs this year in "The Great Heater Disaster of 2025." (All my fault though; I let each temperature probe hang out of water overnight when I went to bed, half-way through tank maintenance.)

Im sorry for your loss.

 

[Connor At CoralVue]

Yes, losses like these suck. It happens to the best of us my friend.

Going forward, I want to make sure you get steered in the right way.

With either aquarium automation system you end up going with, you will still USE A HEATER CONTROLLER!

NEVER simply plug a titanium heater into a aquarium automation system alone, the goal is to create redundancies, and alerts based on those.

For example, using our HYDROS as an example, you would plug a heater controller into a HYDROS Controllable outlet.

HYDROS Gets power from the wall, determines when that heater assigned outlet should be On or Off, based on temp.

HYDROS delivers power to the heater controller, for that to be set simply 1degree higher that HYDROS temp goal, ensuring when HYDROS gives power, heater is working to get to say 80, but HYDROS will cut it off before it gets there at 79.

This creates 2 layers of temp redundancy, but we can do more, this also ensures Power Monitoring is set, we can set the Wattage used by the Heater and ensure its actually on and running. Further, we can set a MAX ON time for the heater, we can say, hey no matter what, this heater shouldn't be on longer than, what 8 hours, or RUN PAST MAX ON TIME, and get a notification that your heater has been on longer than X hours, mins, or seconds. We then have 2 temp sensors check, but can add even more.

This is true with either system, but reach out if you have any questions!