What to do with Aquarium Heaters & Controllers?

droidus · May 12, 2020

I have 3 Eheim Jager Aquarium Thermostat Heaters, 50W. I know that 2 of them, I am not able to calibrate. I recently moved across country with them. They were working fine before, but now are inaccurate/inconsistent at best. It has me worried because I am afraid of the swings, or the temp. getting too high/low. Is there any reason moving across country could have somehow affected them in this manner?
I was looking at replacements/different brands here, but it seems like a lot of people like them. I am not sure if I should just buy new ones, or switch to a different brand.
As I was reading through the posts, I saw mention of controllers (ie for the temperature). Would that be a workaround for the broken water heaters? Instead of relying on the water heater to turn on/off, have a controller do that work? Or would it be smarter to purchase new ones altogether?
FYI, I have a 32 G biocube tank!

GoldeneyeRet · May 13, 2020

A controller is great protection against a heater that fails, but its not a work around in the sense you can still use a broken heater. Replace those heaters !

fishguy242 · May 13, 2020

eheim is very good with replacing heaters ,would try to contact,rt now ??,in recent past they will ask for pic,and then pic w cord cut off ,and send replacement,worth a try ;)

Homebrewer · May 13, 2020

I also vote for replacing them now. Keep hold of those old ones though. A 50w heater is about perfect size to bring a 5gal bucket of water change water up to the right temp, or close enough too it (as these ones may not be spot-on accurate)

Tonmz · Sep 1, 2020

GoldeneyeRet said:
A controller is great protection against a heater that fails, but its not a work around in the sense you can still use a broken heater. Replace those heaters !

Can I buy any controller and heater and assume they are compatible and do all heaters come with ports to plug into controllers?