Heartbroken, Heater went Up

R

rob.mwpropane

New member
So long story short, I haven't been on here in a while as things have been going really well, and life is well, busy. I came home from a 3 day vacation to find my heater calling for heat and my water 95 F. The anemones are done, disappeared, dead. The fish are alive but freaking out, and the few mushrooms I have are all withered. I know this is my fault, I've wanted to get an aquarium controller for a long time, and have just put it off. I feel so defeated...

Anyway, I'm here to fix the problem, I'll be busy beating myself up all day at work. I'm leaning towards the Reef Angel w/WiFi expansion, but I want to know how robust the equipment is? I have LED lighting (Steve's LED DIY), so I'm assuming I need PWM. Is there anything else I need to go with it? I do have Vortechs, but I don't think controlling them is really worth an extra $100.

P.S. - Anyone in Maryland/Harford County area that has experience and can help setting something up, by all means, hit me up.
 
Sorry to hear about your loss. Heater failure is one of the most common problems. I am not familiar with Reef angel but a controller is definitely the way to go. I also like to split my heaters into two smaller heaters instead of one big heater. A smaller heater failing is less likely to cook your tank.


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damn, sorry to hear it.
there is definitely a point where the amount invested into the hobby becomes a strong consideration and while many believe they aren't really necessary an aquarium controller would have prevented this along with many other catastrophic events.
something to consider.
 
I appreciate everyone's condolences. The only thing I've lost for sure are the 2 bta. Sucks. What really, really sucks is if I was more diligent this might not have happened. I had just done a WC and before vacation and thought they were reacting to the new salt....

Has anyone had a temp probe go out? Or give faulty readings? I'm about ready to pull the trigger on a controller, I just want it to be robust. Can you connect 2 temp probes?
 
I use a digital aquatics reef keeper with a temp probe but also use a cheap digital temp probe also to compare it to.


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rob.mwpropane said:
Has anyone had a temp probe go out? Or give faulty readings? I'm about ready to pull the trigger on a controller, I just want it to be robust. Can you connect 2 temp probes?
Click to expand...

i haven't had a faulty temp probe but a likely scenario is a poorly placed probe that doesn't get enough contact with the water will assume the room air temperature to be the tank temperature. this would cause the controller to signal the heaters to continue to fire. the safeguard to that is that is to have it programmed as i do which cuts all lights and heaters once the probe reaches 83 deg.
 
I have a Neptune apex gold and with the pm2 i have a 2nd temp probe the one in the sump controls my heaters the one in the display alerts me if theres problems (both alert but the display temp doesnt actually control anything). I love the neptune so far. Havent used any others but the neptune is really nice for how I use it. A bit pricey however.
 
JohnnyHildo said:
i haven't had a faulty temp probe but a likely scenario is a poorly placed probe that doesn't get enough contact with the water will assume the room air temperature to be the tank temperature. this would cause the controller to signal the heaters to continue to fire. the safeguard to that is that is to have it programmed as i do which cuts all lights and heaters once the probe reaches 83 deg.
Click to expand...

Sometimes, heaters just fail, either on or off. I had a few year old Eheim Jaeger heater fail on and I found my discus tank at 98F. Of course, that is not a huge problem for them, but would have been a reef tank catastrophe.

There are two good ways to avoid such problems. The cheapest is to get 2 heaters that together produce enough wattage to heat your tank. This way, a failure on of one heater will not overheat your tank and a failure off of one will still keep your temperature in a decent, albeit low, range. This is what I have in my discus and angelfish tanks now.

The other is to go with additional controllers. You can simply get a Ranco controller and set it for, say, 76 degrees and set your tank heater for 78. This way you have a redundant system. If the Ranco fails, then the heater controller takes over. If the heater controller fails on, you will never know because the Ranco will keep the temperature correct. A more expensive and capable setup would be to get an aquarium controller. There are many choices. My reef tanks don't have heaters - keeping them below 80 degrees is my main concern. I just bought an Apex for my new 150g build.
 
Like anything else in this hobby, go as big as you can instead of starting cheap and working your way up. I got an Apex a few months ago because i couldn't stand the thought of an entire tank dying because of a tiny piece of metal in my heater malfunctioning.

I got the standard Apex for $380 on eBay. The Junior is about $260 new. I don't worry about the probe failing, as I can watch the temp flux throughout the day.

My lights (Razor) are independent, but I have fun with the powerhead settings. Can't say enough about it.
 
I use the Inkbird controller and don't have any complaints really, easy to use. Controller is set at 78 and heaters are set at 79.
 
rob.mwpropane said:
Has anyone had a temp probe go out? Or give faulty readings? I'm about ready to pull the trigger on a controller, I just want it to be robust. Can you connect 2 temp probes?
Click to expand...

I don't think temp probes failing is a regular occurrence. Even with heaters such as yours that failed, usually it's not that the temp sensor in the heater failed, it's the the tiny contacts that ends up essentially welding itself in the "closed" position after awhile.

With a temp controller the relay contacts are much more robust since they're in the external head unit (or controller power bar) which obviously has much more room than a heater tube.
 
I appreciate all the posts. I'll pull the trigger on a controller, just need to do some research. I am leaning towards the Reef Angel because I like the idea of writing the code for it.

I believe no matter what controller I get it would make the Typhoon controller that's on my lights now obsolete????

Tanks temp is down to 84F, fish ate food which is good. Mushrooms are shriveled, but alive. Anemones I believe are gone.....sucks big time. I've had them guys going strong for 3 years, and the guy that had them before me had them for close to 7 years. I feel like such a disgrace/***..
 
kendrid said:
You can get a stand alone heater controller for $50. I use a Finnex and it works great.
Click to expand...
That looks almost identical to the via aqua heater that just fried everything purchased 3/14 ~ so just barely 2 years old. I really want to pull the trigger on something that will last. If I did anything like that, it would be a Ranco. Thanks for response though.

Alright guys, I think I'm set on the Reef Angel w/wifi, unless someone has experience with this and another controller and can site why to get the other? I am doing my research, but I can't find any bad reviews. I know there a learning curve, which I'm fine with. I really like the idea of something that's open source.

Damage would be $378.00 for controller and wifi module....
 
Last edited:
Another vote for the controller.

Also, I take my heater out of my sump as soon as it warms up. There's no reason for it to be there and it's only a source of failure if something happens. I want that thing in there the minimum time needed
 
If you get the controller don't rely on it alone. Set the temp on the heater(s) a couple degrees above the setting you will use on the controller. That way if the controller fails the temp setting on the heater will prevent them from overheating the tank. You can also have two temp probes like I do and use one for setting the alarms on the controller and the other to control the temp. That way if you have a probe go bad you have a backup controlling the the heater either on the alarms or the control.
 
I have the Reef Angel and absolutely love it; it can literally do anything. Out of the box it supports three temp probes. I have one in the overflow, one in the return chamber, and one for ambient (room) temperature. My heater has it's own controller that is set 1° above the RA unit in case something should happen to it. The heaters controller probe is in the same chamber as the heater in case there was a flow issue.

Mine has only been online for about five weeks but has performed flawless to this point. I'm looking forward to putting my wavemakers on the controller to eliminate those boxes. The RA community has so much info on making the leap easier; instant support from the company there as well.
 
Remember what you want is redundancy not just controller. A controller achieves redundancy.


What I'm getting at is get a controller to control your standard heater with internal thermostat like the Jagers. Don't got out and buy a thermostat-less heater which takes u back to square 1 with 1 thermostat that can fail.


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Watch the for sale sections .... as the new Neptunes are coming out the older apexs are going done in price FAST.
 
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