# Heater safety devices



## Channaman (Dec 10, 2015)

Im new to this hobby and Ive already seen an eheim jeagr heater fail in the on position and take the tank up to 95f. 

Just wondering what everyone is using safety wise for their heaters apart from using a controller. I understand the benefit of running two smaller heaters but that still doesnt do anything for overheating.

Any solutions/suggestions are appreciated

Thanks


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## CoralConnoisseur (Mar 5, 2014)

I have no controller on my large frag system, I have a small battery powered thermometer. Just a small black plastic box the size of a cell phone with a 3 foot probe on it. If temp goes to high or to low it sets off a squealing alarm.
This obviously does not help if nobody is home, but I believe it was around $15. Much cheaper than buying a 2nd controller.

Could be an option for you.


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## Jmbret (Nov 6, 2010)

Part of the hobby is having reliable equipment. Yes, equipment can fail however if you are looking in your tank everyday and playing an important role with your maintenance of equipment you might be able to detect signs of premature heater failure. Then again there might be no signs of it at all.

I just posted this in another thread, hope it helps. 

"If you are trying to close the gap of the high and low temperatures having a reefkeeper will definitely help to close the gap. I used to fluctuate +5 degrees until I bought my reef keeper and now 1.5 degree fluctuation. It also covers your @ss in the event the heater gets stuck in the ON position. Very reassuring. I don't think it is a necessity though...If you are looking to spend some money on your tank and upgrade some equipment, a reefkeeper can help you out in more ways than you can imagine but beware, reefkeeper is a gateway drug."

J


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## ichy (Jun 17, 2013)

20 years ago I had a heater fail and killed all my fish.
Last year, I had another failure and it killed 80% of my fish.
After that disaster, I made my own controller from stuff I had and from parts purchased on ebay.
I had a Eurotherm PID temperature controller from a job a long time ago and just bought some cheap thermocouples to hook up to it. PID is overkill so I just used the basic functions. It has outputs for heat, cool and alarm.
I modified a power bar so that the controller switches the outlets on the power bar. I plug in my heater to the modified outlet cause I don't want to be cutting wires if I were to get a new heater. I also can plug in a fan too, but I found that in our weather we don't really need it.
For my other aquariums, I bought STC-1000 controllers from ebay. Only $20 and it has dual switched ouputs for heat and cool. The display only shows Celsius but it's large enough to see from across the room. I did the same thing and modified the outlets on a power bar.
I set the heater to a max temperature of 80 F so even if the controller fails it will not get too hot.
The temperature is within +/- 0.5 of my setpoint. Don't want it to be cycling on/off too much.

No more fish fries for me!


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

Reefkeeper is your friend


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## Rookie2013 (Jan 17, 2013)

You definetly need a reliable equipment to run a successful reef. I do use my Apex controller to control my heaters however the overall temp in the aquarium still fluctuates because of the Radion's intensity. Just recently I installed 2 cooling fans (Case fans from Canada Computers $7 bucks each) and plugged them with an AC adaptor into a timer I had lying around. Based on the temp fluctuation chart from Apex I programmed the timer accordingly and my tank is pretty much between 79-80. The bottom line you can either get an Apex which controls lots of other stuff and just buy cooling fans with a timer. Overall cost on my fans, adaptors and timers with wire is just under $60 bucks..Hope this helps.


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