Jestersix

EMERGENCY: HEATER MALFUNCTION (PLEASE HELP)

Hella_Salty650 said:
Honestly, it was more of a knowledge gap of me not knowing about temp controls in general. But I appreciate the guidance! Picked up a controller and a couple back up heaters in worst case scenario that it happens again.

New Reefer Lesson Learned
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I once pulled my heater controller temperature sensor out of the water during maintenance and didn't notice. Came home the next day to 120g of 90° primordial soup.

Some lessons are learned the hard way.
 
Hella_Salty650 said:
For Starters: Thank you to everyone who reached out providing advice and offering temporary spare equipment. This is what makes BAR different and I am very appreciative to have come across this forum at the last CFM.

Current Call to action: My dad had a spare finnex temp control laying around and I took the heater I was using from my mangrove tank so it will have to work for the night.

I appreciate you looking out for me Randy! Truly means a lot!

That was the plan, luckily family has spare heaters until my new one comes in.

Lesson learned. Didn't really know too much about equipment and this is the year I really up that knowledge. Reefing Noob here. 1st reef tank and learning quite a bit.

Daly City! Thank you for offering a spare heater temporarily! Currently tank is approaching 79.5 so plan is to use the temp control and set it at that for the night and resume lowering it tomorrow.

Thats a blessing to hear, helps relieve stresss a little more.
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You can put your city location in your Account Details so that it will show up when people click your username. It is very useful if you are asking for something, selling something, etc.

There are many situations where being local makes all the difference and making it easy to see that is helpful.
 
All my equipment is plugged into surge protector power bars as well as tv’s/ laptops which help protect from power spikes. The burning smell is concerning!! hopefully the power spikes just fried the wires inside the heater only. But not a bad idea to make sure the outlet is safe and do not have any blackened/loose wires under the cover
Paul
 
Like JVU said 84 is not ideal but it's not tank crashing horrible.

I had a eheim break and it got to high 90s. That was real bad, everything melted.

I've had great success with neotherms. They are incredibly accurate and stable (secondary readings were always in 0.2 of the setpoint). I abused them too, let them touch open air etc. IMO they are the best on the market for a heater that doesn't need a separate controller and will use one on my new nano where space in the cabinet is very much a premium.
 
CaptainB said:
Like JVU said 84 is not ideal but it's not tank crashing horrible.

I had a eheim break and it got to high 90s. That was real bad, everything melted.

I've had great success with neotherms. They are incredibly accurate and stable (secondary readings were always in 0.2 of the setpoint). I abused them too, let them touch open air etc. IMO they are the best on the market for a heater that doesn't need a separate controller and will use one on my new nano where space in the cabinet is very much a premium.
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I used to think that too. Then Neotherms started to fail me in droves. I’ve never had an exploding one, they just started to fail to read the correct temperature or the heating element just wouldn’t turn on. For the price of the hitop heater paired with a Ranco and Apex, you can just replace the heater once a year if you’re worried. Though I haven’t had one fail after years of use.

HITOP 25W 50W 100W 200W 300W Adjustable Aquarium Heater, Submersible Fish Tank Heater Thermostat with Suction Cup (50W) https://a.co/d/cPRK4tb
 
Coral reefer said:
Why so hot? Seems like you’re pushing the boundary of disaster constantly
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I have a ranch controller I will be installing this weekend. I have two eheims in the DT that are probably not well coordinated or calibrated.

Why so hot? It creeped up on me while I was in my “this tank is so full of aiptasia, I don’t care” frustrated mode when I neglected it for a long time. I’m back on board and it had snuck up on me so I’m fixing it now.
 
Tank update:
With the replacement heater from my mangroves, finnex temp control, I was able to keep the tank warm enough to at least stay 74 for the night.

So far no signs of distress from the corals so appreciative to keep only LPS and Softies. if anything, this triggered some type of explosion in growth for my bio. I now see lots of copepods on the glass along with baby snails all over the place.

Worst case scenario, if corals do begin to react negatively to the big swing shift of 84 to 74. corals will all be placed into our display 150g.

Definitely something I DID NOT expect.
 
Vincerama2 said:
I have a ranch controller I will be installing this weekend. I have two eheims in the DT that are probably not well coordinated or calibrated.

Why so hot? It creeped up on me while I was in my “this tank is so full of aiptasia, I don’t care” frustrated mode when I neglected it for a long time. I’m back on board and it had snuck up on me so I’m fixing it now.
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Higher temp is good for Aiptasia
 
RandyC said:
I used to think that too. Then Neotherms started to fail me in droves. I’ve never had an exploding one, they just started to fail to read the correct temperature or the heating element just wouldn’t turn on. For the price of the hitop heater paired with a Ranco and Apex, you can just replace the heater once a year if you’re worried. Though I haven’t had one fail after years of use.

HITOP 25W 50W 100W 200W 300W Adjustable Aquarium Heater, Submersible Fish Tank Heater Thermostat with Suction Cup (50W) https://a.co/d/cPRK4tb
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Used a HITOP for a while now without issue. These cheap Amazon heaters don’t get enough press. Great for budget builds
 
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Cobalt NeoTherm heaters are garbage. I’ve had so many fail on me. I use a InkBird 306A Wifi paired with a Eheim Jager or BRS titanium heater. The wifi model is nice because the app will notify you if the temp is out of range. They are also plugged in my Apex for redundancy.
 
Mr2KiEu said:
Cobalt NeoTherm heaters are garbage. I’ve had so many fail on me. I use a InkBird 306A Wifi paired with a Eheim Jager or BRS titanium heater. The wifi model is nice because the app will notify you if the temp is out of range. They are also plugged in my Apex for redundancy.
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I have found the app to be really inconsistent. I have come home to the alarm sounding several times with zero notifications.
 
grizfyrfyter said:
I have found the app to be really inconsistent. I have come home to the alarm sounding several times with zero notifications.
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That’s interesting, I never have that problem. Are you using iOS or Android phone? There’s two different InkBird apps on the Apple App Store. Make sure to use this app:
apps.apple.com

‎Inkbird Pro

‎We upgraded and improved on the basis of InkBirdSmart and released the version of InkBird Pro. This release adds several features: 1. Connect and control more complex smart devices; 2. Export historical data to csv files and share to social media; 3. Multi-language switching function in the...
apps.apple.com
 
Kensington Reefer said:
Aqualogic and ranco controllers….
never had a problem
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I have just wired a ranco controller. I stuck the probe in and it said 76F. hmmmm.... but my Aquacontroller says 83! So I dug out a digital aquarium thermometer, put new batteries and use that, it said 75.9. So Hmm...... OK. I check my ancient Aquacontroller and re-calibrate it and now it tracks the digital controller. The Ranco is accurate to single digit temps, no tenths.
But yes, I completely agree. The old saying "Two is one, one is none" holds true here. You gotta double check and calibrate equipment you rely on.

V
 
Vincerama2 said:
I have just wired a ranco controller. I stuck the probe in and it said 76F. hmmmm.... but my Aquacontroller says 83! So I dug out a digital aquarium thermometer, put new batteries and use that, it said 75.9. So Hmm...... OK. I check my ancient Aquacontroller and re-calibrate it and now it tracks the digital controller. The Ranco is accurate to single digit temps, no tenths.
But yes, I completely agree. The old saying "Two is one, one is none" holds true here. You gotta double check and calibrate equipment you rely on.

V
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Ranco and Aqualogic are +/- 2 degrees
 
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