What’s the latest on heaters

[DaveS]

Haven’t looked at heaters in a long time.  What’s the latest that everyone is happy with?  Titanium Finnex? BRS?  Reviews all seem mixed.  Is there another brand to look at?

[wildcrazyjoker81]

I kinda went down a rabbit hole a few months ago on heaters. Wanted to try out the new IM Helio PTC heater as that is the newest tech, but I'm definitely not one to adopt new tech in something as important as a heater as I read a lot of negative reviews that gave me an uneasy feeling. Finnex titanium and ehiem are always the old go to, but after reading and talking with a buddy in Italy who breeds discus I went with the BRS heaters. They are made by Schego and are great Germany made heaters. I like the fact they seem to pull less amperage than Finnex heaters per watt which is important on bigger wattage heaters.

I've had the 600w one for 3 years and clean it twice a year and it has been rock solid. I have a spare in the closet for the day it dies or acts up.

Just my thoughts on the topic. I'd love to hear some local successful stories on the PTC heaters.

Aaron

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[BowieReefer84]

I’m running a Eheim jager set a couple degrees above where I control it with a ranco. The ranco temp probe is wrapped in plastic. It was an option at checkout to have the sensor in shrink wrap. 

[DaJMasta]

I've heard there are some heaters on the market which do a better job of maintaining a specific temperature (less swing, tighter regulation), but if it's plugged into a controller that will be up to the controller in any case.  To my knowledge, there hasn't been any huge leap in reliability or safety features aside from current monitoring and/or external control from a controller.

[lynn.reef.nerd]

I avoid the glass types these days. Just seeing how many of them burst at shows. Majority of mine are the titanium with a inkbird control and hydros as secondary. 

[lowsingle]

IMO heaters haven’t changed in decades.  I monitor temp with my apex but control it with a simple Inkbird controller.  I undersized my heater so it takes longer to heat the aquarium so it doesn’t switch on and off as much and i let my temp swing by 2 d F.  I purchase a new one each year as the titanium heaters are cheap and usually what fails in them is the switching element. This is my heating strategy until I see real improvement in heater reliability.

 

Darren

 

[cpeguero]

I have a brs (maybe 300w) and an Rhein on an InkBird. The InkBird is connected to a switched outlet run by my Profilux. The heaters don’t switch on often. I’m usually doing evaporative cooking with a small fan run by my Profilux.

I do keep the whole house at 74 year round…. I like to be comfortable at home without a sweatshirt in the winter, and the fish are a good excuse


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[davelin315]

I agree with the ones above that say same old same old.  Heaters are one of the least reliable pieces of equipment on the market and I have been through tons of them myself.  I find that amongst the reputable brands you're still going to come across failures more often than not.  I go with an Inkbird controller so that it can alert me audibly and through the app and try to replace the titanium heaters whenever I remember to (I try to replace once per year but I am not always successful with that).  Bottom line with them is to plan for a failure and think around that possible failure (e.g. secure temp probes and don't rely on the suction cups, check your heater periodically to ensure that it's working, set your controller up appropriately and understand error codes, undersize if possible and keep backups on hand, etc.).