Heaters

[Anonymous]

Hello to all,

Here is my question.

It has been suggested by some to have more than one heater in your aquarium for reliability sake. It has also been suggested that you put the heaters in your sump. My question is how can you tell if one of the two heaters has broken. They are in the sump which means to me that they are out of sight. When the heater was in the back of my 55 Gal, I could see the little red light come on and if it stayed on for a long, long time I would get up and check it. The situation that I can see happening is heater A breaks and this goes unnoticed because heater B takes up the slack. Then heater B breaks and now I am in the same situation I would have been in had I only used one heater. Does not anyone else out there have these concerns? Any opinions? Does anyone have some sort of a low temperature alarm? It concerns me enough that I have an ugly old thermometer in my display tank just so I can see it. In case anyone wonders, I try to limit looking in the sump to twice a day as the hinges on the cabinet doors are going to wear out soon. lol

Thanks for any input

Bryan Flanigan

 

[c0n]

get a digital thermometor, put the display somewhere where you can easily view the temperature in the main tank..i have my heater in the sump, and have a display on the side of my stand so i can easily tell whats going on with the temperature in my tank. also if you go that route, make sure the sensor is completely waterproof, most arent, mine wasnt, i just took some superglue and glued the entire sensor all the way around even on the cords, that way no water leeched into the casing and rusted.

 

[Anonymous]

I have to have more than one heater because just one won't keep the temp up in the winter. Main tank is upstairs, sump and skimmertank in the basement. I think having the water running through all those hoses cools it off.

The plus side is my tank never gets too hot that a extra fan blowing at it doesn't solve!

 

[Len]

I use one myself, but redunancy of two is a good idea (same with pumps). You might not be able to immediately tell one is broken if you're using two unless you make it practice to check on a regular basis. But isn't that the point? If your heater breaks, its better that you .... and your tank's inhabitants .... doesn't notice it's broken when the second one backs it up. Just check the heaters in the sump once a week. Also, use two GFCIs (ground fault circuit interrupter) with each heater to avoid any possible damage to your animals or property. If one malfunctions, the GFCI will disconnect electricity to it automatically and eliminating safety concerns.

 

[Anonymous]

I use one myself, but redundancy of two is a good idea (same with pumps).

I absolutely agree. I have one Won 300W in my sump, and after reading this thread I'm on my way to purchase another.

I'm thinking to myself...what am I doing with just one?

Chris

 

[Anonymous]

I have one heater but it's not plugged in right now. In fact, I wont plug it in again until next winter. Here in Florida, you don't have to worry about your tank being to cold that often. I try to plug it in before the first cold snap, in case it happens before we think to switch the AC over to Heat mode, lol.

Louey

 

[reefNewbie]

thats why you get the titainium pro 2 heater with digital readout and place that where you can see it like in my setup.

 

[Reefguide]

None, 73f - 77f swing...

 

[Texas2Turkey]

Not to be pessimistic -- but with two heaters you also have double the chances of one getting stuck on and overheating the tank...which the GFIC does not necessarily catch.....

 

[Garry thomas]

I run 5 heaters in my sump totaling 1900 watts
2x500 watt
3x300 " "
But i run an octopuss controller, so none of the heaters are heater/thermo's they are controlled by the thermostat on the puter, far more reliable and accurate.

 

[Anonymous]

3 Won-pro heaters on a temp comtroller. Hey reefnewbie- the digital readouts on those are extreeemly innacurate. At least mine is since the sensor is on the heat probe itself- I think they have changed it. Anyway, be sure to check your thermometer independantly.

Texturk- I think the idea is that the 2 heaters are half powered and either stuck on alone won't overheat the tank, or at least slowly.

I have 3 mainly because I didn't realize how much heat it would take to warm my 75g sump in my cold basement. maybe I will insulate it next year.

 

[Anonymous]

Not to be pessimistic -- but with two heaters you also have double the chances of one getting stuck on and overheating the tank...which the GFIC does not necessarily catch.....

While I can't do the math for you, the chances of that are incredibly rare. I've yet to hear of it, as a matter of fact. There is no way a GFCI will catch that, either, it's not what they're designed to do.

knucklehead, you already know what I think. You didn't provide the third option (which is what I recommended you do), so I didn't vote, which is what some others have already brought up here: putting one heater in the main, and one in the sump/fuge.

How many others have specific heater brands they'd like to recommend? I vote for Eheim (ALWAYS a quality product), generally Visitherms, and NEVER Ebo Jaegers.

Marked for archiving.

 

[Anonymous]

While I can't do the math for you, the chances of that are incredibly rare. I've yet to hear of it, as a matter of fact.

He's just saying having two heaters will double the chance of one malfunctioning- can't argue with that.

While we're on brands, I would only use solid titanium heaters- either won or jalli and on a controllers the problems some have experienced with the wons won't be an issue.

 

[Robin Goodfellow]

hi.
Steve (Srfmon in RAMR and RC) have the "heater always on" problem a few weeks ago, and he lost 10 nice SPS colonies because of it. So, Ms. Orange, now you hear it.

 

[Anonymous]

I vote Yay! to won pros and Booooooo to visitherms. I have had the snot shocked out of me from visitherms twice. Both times, after I recovered, I inspected the heater. There were no cracks, it seems the seal around the top started letting moisture in.

Threw all the visitherms right into the trash.

Of course this was in the tank not on a GFCI!

Never had a lick of a problem with the won pros.

 

[Anonymous]

darn double post.

 

[Anonymous]

I've heard of one heater getting stuck (thus why I always recommend using two), but I don't follow that logic that says that by having the load divided into two heaters means you'll necessarily increase the chances (let alone double them) that one will give trouble. That just doesn't make sense to me.

I have heard of others having trouble with Visitherms, I used mine almost a decade with no troubles. However, they're not a prime brand, either.

Let's keep 'em coming!

 

[MarkO1]

I think "none" needs to be added to the poll. I have none. During winter my temp runs 78-82º In summer about 4 degrees higher.
_________________
Mercedes Benz 300

 

[Anonymous]

In SMashechusetts? (Sorry, couldn't resist..used to have trouble with that one and "comfortable" when I was about 3 or 4.)

How, then, do you maintain tank temps? The pumps? And how long have you had your system set up?

 

[Will C1]

i use one in each of my tanks their ebo-yegers and i love them. their the old ones i would guess 4 years or so each and i havent had one problem with them. in years past i have used visa-therms and have had only one problem with one of them. it exploded in my first sw tank and shocked the sh*t out of my fish and corals but they all recovered. so 1 bad heater out of the 10 or so i have bought over the years isnt to bad lol.