in sump heater. does anyone have a good recommendation for a submersible in a 150 gal.
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heater
- Thread starter reeferwanabe
- Start date
reefsandrotts
NJRC Member
I run 2 300 watt visa threm heaters in my sump.
Very cheap under $20.00 and have had them for a couple years from prior set ups.
Very cheap under $20.00 and have had them for a couple years from prior set ups.
I just wanted to say, do not go with one strong but with two or more smaller.
Hi...Wattage of the heater depends in part on the room temperature where the tank and sump are located. I have a 135 reef in my family room where the temp is kept fairly constant at about 68-72 degrees throughout the year, so I use only a 250 watt submersible titanium heater. It is hooked up to an Aqua Medic controller that turns the heater on when the water temp falls to 77 degrees. The heater/controller cost me about $70.00 and has run perfectly. What's more, the heating element is separate from the controller so you can use a higher wattage heating element if your situation calls for it. Aqua Medic makes a 500 watt element and in between wattages (eg.300) are made by other companies. Before getting the Aqua Medic, I used a Won Brothers unit and was not at all happy with it. Hope this helps.
Dom
Dom
mladencovic said:
I can't/won't recommend any particular heater or brand as I've had problems with just about every brand there is over the years. It seems that when most heaters fail they tend to fail in the ON position. In other words the heater will come on but never turn back off again. This has been my experience anyway.
For this reason I would strongly suggest following mladencovic's advice above. Use 2 or better yet, 3 smaller heaters. This way if/when it happens to you the temps in the tank don't skyrocket. You've got a much better chance with one failure to notice the temps being "off" from normal. With two (or 3) heaters you cover yourself in both situations. If one sticks ON the other(s) will not come on because the temperature is already a little to hot. But the tank doesn't skyrocket. If one heater fails to turn on the other(s) is/are still working and keeping the tank from getting to cold. In either case you will be able to see a difference and notice that your tank a couple of degrees off from normal but not enough to hurt anything.
Remember to check your heaters as part of your normal checkup/maintenance routine.
Carlo
thanks for the info guys your the best. I'm gonna go with several small ones. makes sense to me.
These are the types of little "tricks and tips" you never tend to think about until you get "burned" (literally) once by.
What's kind of funny, is that I've never heard a LFS tell people this one. They push "so much" equipment (some stores anyway) you think they would do this with heaters too, but I've always just seen the big 250 or 300 watt heater thrown in the package. Who knows, maybe they figure they get to resell livestock again after a crash down the road. <--- Pessimistic thinking
Carlo
What's kind of funny, is that I've never heard a LFS tell people this one. They push "so much" equipment (some stores anyway) you think they would do this with heaters too, but I've always just seen the big 250 or 300 watt heater thrown in the package. Who knows, maybe they figure they get to resell livestock again after a crash down the road. <--- Pessimistic thinking
Carlo
When we got our tank from Trop they sold us 2 of the smaller heaters rather than one large one. Don't know if that had to do with the size of the tank or just the salesman we had at the time.
When our system grew we replaced the smaller stealth probes with Won brothers heaters.
I had a problem with 2 different Won brothers heaters with the controller & thermostat (one digital and one not). Both of them failed on us (at different times), but luckily both in the off position. Caused some mighty cold waters for a few hours, but better than the the fried tank. Everything seemed to recover ok from that.
That's one of the reasons I think an ACJr (at the very least) or other temperature controller is important. With the temperature controller and a thermostatically controlled heater you have a double fail safe against skyrocketing temperatures. We keep our heaters set to 1-2 degrees over what our AC would turn it off at. If the AC fails, the heaters would turn off and if the heater fails in the on position the AC would have turned it off anyway. Since we have 4 heaters on the system if one of them doesn't go on the others will have to work harder. That's the one condition that we have to watch for to see if they're properly coming on and off in accordance with the temperatures of the tank.
When our system grew we replaced the smaller stealth probes with Won brothers heaters.
I had a problem with 2 different Won brothers heaters with the controller & thermostat (one digital and one not). Both of them failed on us (at different times), but luckily both in the off position. Caused some mighty cold waters for a few hours, but better than the the fried tank. Everything seemed to recover ok from that.
That's one of the reasons I think an ACJr (at the very least) or other temperature controller is important. With the temperature controller and a thermostatically controlled heater you have a double fail safe against skyrocketing temperatures. We keep our heaters set to 1-2 degrees over what our AC would turn it off at. If the AC fails, the heaters would turn off and if the heater fails in the on position the AC would have turned it off anyway. Since we have 4 heaters on the system if one of them doesn't go on the others will have to work harder. That's the one condition that we have to watch for to see if they're properly coming on and off in accordance with the temperatures of the tank.