heater which one is reliable

[WindyDayzz]

what heater is the best to use for a 55gal

[3felines]

I have used a EBO Jager 200 watt in my 42 gal. tank for a year and a half with no problems and good performance. I keep a back up heater in my salt mix bucket so my water exchange is the same temp. just in case.

[Entropy]

I like the ebo jagers as well. I think you would be able to get away with a 100w for your tank.

Optimally I would recommend 2x100w Titanium heaters on a seperate temp controller, but this is not the cheapest solution. Good for peace of mind though.

[szwab]

I have heard lots of good things about Finnex submersible heaters. I use won and have to "surgically" alter them due to themostat malfunction and they are now controlled soley by my controller. I will be changing mine over to those soon :)

[javajaws]

I've got an ebo on my freshwater tank and an extra ebo I use for my water change container. They are great heaters but I don't think they recommend fully submerging them though... If you need to do that I would think about one of the titanium heaters with separate controllers. I use 2 150w Via Aqua titanium heaters and haven't had any problems with them. I've heard lots of bad things about the Won heaters in the past, but YMMV...

[sjm817]

I'm also running Ebo Jagers (2) 150W. They have been good so far. They can be submerged even though they say not (legality thing). Temp setting is accurate too.

[WIKI2ECHO]

Too many bad Wons and other broken glass types. Using only Finnex with a controller. Either the Finnex controller or Neptune AC as a controller. So far so good ......no problemo.

Bill

[Tom_Nev]

I have a couple of the old green EBO Jagers (think it was pre EBO - Jager only) that are 20 + years old and still work fine. Also have some newer ones that are 6 to 8 months old. Only problem I ever had was the indicator light on one of the newer ones failing (still heats fine, use it in my water change mixing tank). Pretty reliable in my experience.

[BeanAnimal]

ALL HEATERS ARE JUNK. You can find horror stories about each and every brand. Don'y buy into anybody's "I have a so and so and love it".

Buy a temp controller and get some real reliablity. If you rely on a heaters temo contoller you will have cooked or frozen fish... not IF but WHEN.

Bean

[chrisguy]

I think Bean has a point, although a little blunt IMO. Not all heaters are junk, but like any electronic component they are prone to failure. He is right, there is someone, somewhere that will tell you a product is great and someone else to tell you it’s junk.

I had a WON Pri Heat II titanium. The control in the heater went bad and read a temp of 153 when it was only 6 months old. Because of the controller failure it was not heating the tank. Because I had a single heater the tank temp started dropping, but not too fast as the house was warm. I got the WON heater fixed but only use it to heat mixing water. Don’t trust it any more and don’t think I would buy another in the future.

I replaced it with two visi-therm heaters (cheap but have good reviews). Both are a little under sized for the size of the tank. Now if one dies, the other can sustain the tank until the other gets fixed. On the same token, if one gets stuck it does not have the ability to excessively over heat the tank.

IMO, two smaller heaters are better than one big one. Money is always an issue. Controllers are expensive and can go bad just as easily as any other piece of equipment. IMO the key is to have a reliable digital thermometer (or two) and check it regularly.

[szwab]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6529179#post6529179 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by chrisguy
I replaced it with two visi-therm heaters (cheap but have good reviews). Both are a little under sized for the size of the tank. Now if one dies, the other can sustain the tank until the other gets fixed. On the same token, if one gets stuck it does not have the ability to excessively over heat the tank.

IMO, two smaller heaters are better than one big one. Money is always an issue. Controllers are expensive and can go bad just as easily as any other piece of equipment. IMO the key is to have a reliable digital thermometer (or two) and check it regularly.

very good advice I use 3 undersized heaters with an aquacontroller. replacing my heaters one by one thogh to have a little bit of a saftey with the thermostat attached to the heater in case the controller goes funky on me :)

[BeanAnimal]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6529179#post6529179 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by chrisguy
I think Bean has a point, although a little blunt IMO. Not all heaters are junk, but like any electronic component they are prone to failure. ...

... Money is always an issue. Controllers are expensive and can go bad just as easily as any other piece of equipment. IMO the key is to have a reliable digital thermometer (or two) and check it regularly.

I wasn't aware that I should be kind to heaters or heater manufacturers. They are junk.

With regards to being like any electronic component... that is a misconception. Not all components or circuits are created equal, or even nearly equal.

Money is an issue, but livestock costs money. One of the most important things you can spend money on is life support for you system. A JUNK heater is a weak link in the chain and has the potential to cause severe monetary damage.

A thermometer does nothing to protect your tank from stuck heaters or heater failure.

Temp controllers are made from robust components that are overrated for the paramaters they operate in. Temp controllers are designed to be reliable for industrail processes and devices. Aquarium heaters are designed to be as cheap (profitable) as possible and use minimally speced (under speced?) components. Standard aquarium heaters rely on tightly packed poorly constructed miniature mechanical thermostats that are prone to failure in high numbers (ever see an old school wall thermostat fail... NO). Electronic aquarium heaters use super cheap non redundant heat sensors and poorly designed logic circuits to control the element. These non protected, poorly engineered circuits have no fail-safe and are prone to failure in high numbers.

So I will say it again, there is not an aquarium heater on the market that I would trust in my tank if it was not connected to a RANCO or other industrial temp controller.

A RANCO costs $150 for a reason
A WON costs $11 for a reason

Bean

[guitarfish]

I bought three 200w Ebo-Jagers 2 years ago. At the one year mark, one got stuck in the on position. I caught it before the system got too warm, yanked both, and replaced them with Tronic heaters.

The third Ebo I had in a QT tank. A few days ago I come home and my Coral Beauty is dead as a doornail. The tank is 90+ degrees. Ebo #2 stuck in the on position, and this time it killed a fish, which I'm quite ticked at.

I don't know of a brand that doesn't have this problem, but I can assure you, Ebo's aren't the greatest things since sliced bread. Use them at your own peril.