chaseracing
Premium Member
Anyone have any experience with these?
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Won Brothers Titanium Heaters
- Thread starter chaseracing
- Start date
supersantay
New member
I have to comment here as I am completely disgusted with a couple of brand heaters. I first went with the WON Titanium 300W digital heater - It only took a month for the display to flake out and continously go from 79 thru 84; it continues this pattern constantly.
I then purchased a Finnex titanium 300W w/digital display - this one lasted two months and when it was all said and done the display was slowly increasing and last time I looked it showed 86 deg - tank wound up going down to 75 deg overnight where it normally stayed at 78 deg.
I did not send them in for repair as I have heard some people do and they seem to work. But for how long?????
I am just disgusted at how quickly both of them failed! I do however have an Ebo Jaeger from around 1990 which works just fine. It is the older glass models (green).
With anything it is going to be hit or miss. I am sure there are some people quite happy with WON and Finnex.
I then purchased a Finnex titanium 300W w/digital display - this one lasted two months and when it was all said and done the display was slowly increasing and last time I looked it showed 86 deg - tank wound up going down to 75 deg overnight where it normally stayed at 78 deg.
I did not send them in for repair as I have heard some people do and they seem to work. But for how long?????
I am just disgusted at how quickly both of them failed! I do however have an Ebo Jaeger from around 1990 which works just fine. It is the older glass models (green).
With anything it is going to be hit or miss. I am sure there are some people quite happy with WON and Finnex.
Rod Buehler
New member
I have had the same experience. I have had bad luck with almost every titanium that I have used. Gen-x, Finex, and Won. Most have either stopped working in short order, or they ended up shocking the crap out of me. I have some OLD ebo jaeger that have been around for years and still work great. I also use a lot of the smaller stealth heaters, but I am not sure what I think of those. I once thought they were pretty good, but now I am not certain if I trust the thermostats in the stealths.
I personally wouldn't trust the thermostat in any of these heaters... they're all cheap. Use an external controller like an Aquacontroller, Reefkeeper, etc. or a Ranco Temperature Controller if you want decently accurate temps. I also personally wouldn't run just 1 heater if I could help it. Redundancy is a good thing... especially when it comes to heaters! 
flapjack1439
New member
I've had 2 different Won Brothers with no problems.
After my glass heater recently exploded and electrocuted some LR I was curing....uh oh where is that smoke coming from?
I replaced them with three won titaniums, one of which is now stuck permanently on at the full 300 watts.
I think all heaters suck, and I will be getting a controller to prevent more disasters.
I replaced them with three won titaniums, one of which is now stuck permanently on at the full 300 watts.
I think all heaters suck, and I will be getting a controller to prevent more disasters.
Yes, all of the heaters out there right now seem to be of poor quality. I don't understand why this is. I had a Finnex that lasted a couple of years without any problems. The new Finnex heaters apparently are having major problems. The 'best' ones as of late that I have used are the Visa-therm stealth heaters, but I think their wattages may be over-rated. I had one Finnex 500 watt heater in my 180 gallon tank (20 gallons in the sump) and never had a problem heating it. I had two 250W stealth heaters and they could not keep up - they just couldn't keep the water warm enough in the winter. I have recently just switched to the new WON titanium tubes - no thermostat. I have a controller so that turns the heaters on and off. I hope these work and last at least a few years!
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9669825#post9669825 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Vamp1975
The controllers had issues to, I had one that kept blowing fuses every other week
The Ranco I mentioned above is supposed to be about as reliable as it gets, though I confess I haven't used it. I'm using an aquacontroller here.
My preferred setup is controller of some sort, and at least 2 heaters with their own thermostats. You set both heaters thermostats slightly higher than the tank temp you actually want, then put them both on your temp controller and set that to what you actually want your tank to be at. If a heater shuts down and stops working, the other will keep things going till you get a replacement. If a heater gets stuck on, the controller will keep it from frying your tank. If your temp controller gets stuck on, the thermostats on the heaters will keep your tank from cooking. Of course if the controller dies off, then you're not covered, so it's not perfect. Only way you could prevent that one is to have redundant temp controllers too, but that's a tad expensive. Still, if you're paying any sort of attention to your tank, this one should be easy enough to catch and fix.
Rod Buehler
New member
Doh!.. I was supposed to help you with that, wasnt I?
