Heater?

[Crackhead Johny]

Finex heater just snuffed dinner plate discus. Half of a breeding pair.  Heater was 2 weeks old. so ~500$ loss to Finex.

Marineland heaters. last a few months if lucky. 2,500$ in dead fish plus the end of the "male fin on female betta" breeding program. 4 heaters failed ~6 months.

Hydor. a few months and then MAX temp all the time, 0 kill as I was going to shrimp the tank but when heater went Berserk I went with fish that were happy at 86.

Aquatop. 3 months to 500$ fish kill. 1 tank. discus breeding pair.

Aquarion. 3 heaters dead in 3 months. 1,000+$ kill.

 

In the last year I have lost thousands of dollars to bad heaters. It seems that all brands are bad. Anyone got any recommendations?

My wife is currently on a rage about the death of Big Blue (Finex kill).

 

Are there any good heaters any more?

 

Oh.. and you may not like this part. Big Blue is in the fridge. I want to see what a couple hundred dollar fish tastes like, my wife insists she is going to taxidermy him. Should I eat him or let her turn him into something amazing?

[fernselvis]

Sorry for your losses. Have a similar issue with the jbl heater just stopped working yesterday and my discus tank temp was 22 instead of 30. Took it out wiped it down to go back to the store and it seems to work but I'm not sure about it anymore. On the other hand my Chinese one has no issues.


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[OMG Aquatics]

Aqueon Pro heaters never failed me.

I will use ONLY Aqueon Pro on any of my tanks that contain valuable stock.

[chappy6107]

you need a fail safe from a controller.  heater gets past a certain degree...controller shuts it off.  You would have to have the heater & the controller fail.

[seaj]

I use Ebo Jager heaters. The only other one I have as a Tetra one that is already pre-set. Controllers are a must, if you really prize you aquatic pets. They add an extra layer of protection when it comes to maintaining parameters. 

[Crackhead Johny]

So maybe fire up that ancient green Ebo jager.. Hmm I just keep looking at it and not trusting it. I think it was made some where around when Columbus discovered the new world.

 

The fish kills are not crockpot deaths generally. They are very warm water fish suddenly ending up cold and dead. Some time we luck out and find the discus freaking out and slamming into things (when this happens odds are your heater is dead). One tank has whirling disease which goes off when the temp drops. Always kills one discus at a time and they do not last til morning once they spin (we are running this tank at ~94 and loading it with antiparasitics so hopefully this is cured).

 

Good to hear about the Aqueon Pros. I keep looking at their price and wondering. The Finex we are/were running were recommended above the Finex titanium heaters by reef folk so I figured they'd be good as reefers tend to run more expensive stock than any freshwater non-shrimpers (shrimpers just win the $/gal competition*.. though Discus may be in their league).

 

So these controllers you speak of.. got a link?

 

And again, thanks so much for the advice.

 

*shrimpers, man.. last local shrimper meet I was at one guy was razzing another about his 50,000$ worth of Wang's in one tank and that he was not selling/giving/trading any of them. 50K of shrimp in a tank (there should be some sort of bulging eye emoji for this). well beyond the local guy with the L46s or any number of Picasso triggers in a salt (though I have only seen these solo, do they kill each other?).

[chappy6107]

18 hours ago, Crackhead Johny said:

So these controllers you speak of.. got a link?

 

 

your finnex heaters are typically good heaters.  I prefer the eheim jagers though.  the ebo jager you speak of is the best heater I ever owned.  eheim bought the company and supposedly did not change the way they are built...who really knows though.  

 

These controllers just prevent from cooking your fish though.  Alot of the discus keepers from my local aquarium group do not use just one heater. Instead they use 2 or 3 smaller heaters.  They claim if 1 smaller heater goes haywire it is not powerful enough to fry the tank.  and if 1 quits working, the other 2 work harder to maintain the temp and at least gives them enough time to replace the bad one.  Having several heaters keeps any 1 single heater from overworking to stay at the discus temps too.

 

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/jbj-true-temp-digital-heater-controller.html

http://www.aquacave.com/finnex-deluxe-electronic-temperature-controller.html

http://www.aquacave.com/finnex-hc810-digital-controller.html

http://www.aquacave.com/pinpoint-temperature-controller-by-american-marine.html

of course the 

reefkeeper controllers

and the gold standard:

Apex controllers

 

[OblongShrimp]

I agree using several smaller heaters or the controllers is the way to go.  You obviously have enough invested in your fish to make the investment worthwhile.

[Shrimple minded]

I expected to scroll down through several mentions of Cobalt Neotherm.  

 

I'm running hydor on Neo tanks and hydor in-line for canister filtered tanks, and Cobalt Neotherm on all of my bees.

 

And to complete my response, I vote for eating vs taxidermy, please report back

[Cappie49]

On my shrimp tanks I use fluval heaters with the LCD display. I've never had a problem with temps while using them and the LCD is an easy warning system bright green when fine blue when cold red when hot. Clearly visible from a distance. They easy set on 0.5 Celsius increments.

On my discus tank I use the eheim thermo filters. I use 2 2180s on my 100 uk gal tank. Great filtration and again the temps are displayed digitally. If one ever failed off the other can cope and if ever failed on the red display would flash which is noticeable even from inside the cabinet where they sit. Can't rember the range but think it flashes if ever more than 2 degrees out. I've never known them be more than 0.2 C out. Can be set in C or F.

[chappy6107]

10 hours ago, Shrimple minded said:

I expected to scroll down through several mentions of Cobalt Neotherm.  

 

I'm running hydor on Neo tanks and hydor in-line for canister filtered tanks, and Cobalt Neotherm on all of my bees.

 

And to complete my response, I vote for eating vs taxidermy, please report back

 

I do have a couple neotherms and I love how sleek they are.  As far as the way they look, they are my favorite.  But I have found I need a much larger heater in the neotherm than I do in just about any other brand.