Eheim Jager heaters suck!

[Saveafish]

Do you fully submerged your heaters. If so that's the helper. Yes, I know they all say submergedable.. keep the head above water help last a lil longer. I burn through heaters too. They fail, that's why you need a controller on them. Controllers prolong their life. Because the heater in its mind is always on. It don't have to click on and off. The controller does it. Saving the on off switch in the heater from wearing.

 

[ca1ore]

Yes, good advice; I always try to keep business end of heaters out of the water. Only exception is the finnex titanium which is just a resistive tube anyhow.

 

[Engloid]

Buy a tempurature controller for 50$ and this will never happen again:
You can find wiring turorials on yt and do it in 5 mins. Then you just plugin your heater like normal. I dont have them on my QT either, yet.

https://www.amazon.com/RANCO-ETC-111000-Digital-Temperature-Control/dp/B0015NV5BE

PS. Eheim heaters are extremely efficient at heating per W because of their length and glass thickness. I just ordered two 250ws for the new 210g.

Ranco doesnt make these controllers. If I remember right, they are made for hvac purposes. Ranco buys the box with internals, attaches probe and power cables, and resells them.

I had one that would default to cooling mode every time there was a power outage. I called to see if there was a way to change it. I got the ranco owner on the phone. The man was the rudest person I have ever dealt with in this hobby. He essentially told me I didnt know what I was talking about and that the problem didnt exist. I will never own another ranco product. My advice is to find another controller.....ir another source of the same one.

 

[joec]

I agree. 84 should not be fatal. It is the upper limit but many reefs have run at that temp in summertime.

I would have thought the same. I tested the parameters and all were fine.

 

[Fish_Sticks]

Ranco doesnt make these controllers. If I remember right, they are made for hvac purposes. Ranco buys the box with internals, attaches probe and power cables, and resells them.

I had one that would default to cooling mode every time there was a power outage. I called to see if there was a way to change it. I got the ranco owner on the phone. The man was the rudest person I have ever dealt with in this hobby. He essentially told me I didnt know what I was talking about and that the problem didnt exist. I will never own another ranco product. My advice is to find another controller.....ir another source of the same one.

Its an industrial product fit for heavy use. They have hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment and product relying on these things. Calling the owner of ranco while hes busy doing god knows how much stuff isnt gonna make him happy and sit down and talk all about the sunshine and rainbows with you. Just buy through amazon and you can return it through them for a new one, if it has an issue.

Inkbirds will be brought up eventually, and those things fail because the probes arent water tight. Theyre not used in industrial scenarios like ranco is.

 

[Engloid]

Its an industrial product fit for heavy use. They have hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment and product relying on these things. Calling the ranco guy while hes busy doing stuff isnt gonna help. Just buy through amazon and you can return it through them for a new one, if it has an issue.

I called a company that sold the product and asked him help for help. What is wrong with doing that? How do you know he was busy?

Your post is not helpful nor is it wanted. You simply want to argue and be rude. You have no idea what the guy was doing when I called yet you want to imply that I wanted to talk about Sunshine's and rainbows just to explain how rude you are actually being. Please just move along.

 

[Fish_Sticks]

I called a company that sold the product and asked him help for help. What is wrong with doing that? How do you know he was busy?

Your post is not helpful nor is it wanted. You simply want to argue and be rude. You have no idea what the guy was doing when I called yet you want to imply that I wanted to talk about Sunshine's and rainbows just to explain how rude you are actually being. Please just move along.

Judging by how you react to simple comments, Id say youre just a bit of a sensative person anyways lol. Im sure there are plenty who will find the ranco recomendation extremly helpful.

Calling up the owner of a company to shoot the breeze or ask for a return is never going to work. You have to go through the distributor.

 

[Engloid]

Judging by how you react to simple comments, Id say youre just a bit of a sensative person anyways lol. Im sure there are plenty who will find the ranco recomendation extremly helpful.

Calling up the owner of a company to shoot the breeze or ask for a return is never going to work. You have to go through the distributor.

I didn't either of those so quit making your ridiculous assumptions.

 

[Engloid]

I don't want your input or your opinions so please just stop. I will be reporting all of your comments attacking me.

 

[Fish_Sticks]

Goodluck with that. This is an online forum where people post differing opinions. If you dont like people saying things different than you, then youre in the wrong place. But Im sure we'd all appreciate it if you could stop derailing the thread. If you have a problem with me then send me a Pm.

As I said before, this guy isnt some LFS owner you can call up and just start talking about some issue with. You have to go to the distributor for a refund.

Also make sure you wired it correctly.

 

[ca1ore]

Regardless of the sourced components, the Ranco ETC-111000 has certainly stood the test of time for me. I've three at home (all bought prewired with probe sleeve). Anything can fail, of course, but my oldest is almost a decade and it hasn't failed yet. BTW, earlier comment about EJ somehow being more efficient is nonsense. Aquarium stick heaters are pure resistive load - a watt is a watt, doesn't matter the brand. It is certainly possible that some brands may not reach their stated wattage (this seems common with the Finnex titanium models), but otherwise there's no credible claim that one 150 watter is more efficient than any other.

 

[Fish_Sticks]

Regardless of the sourced components, the Ranco ETC-111000 has certainly stood the test of time for me. I've three at home (all bought prewired with probe sleeve). Anything can fail, of course, but my oldest is almost a decade and it hasn't failed yet. BTW, earlier comment about EJ somehow being more efficient is nonsense. Aquarium stick heaters are pure resistive load - a watt is a watt, doesn't matter the brand. It is certainly possible that some brands may not reach their stated wattage (this seems common with the Finnex titanium models), but otherwise there's no credible claim that one 150 watter is more efficient than any other.

Well check this out, the data seems to suggest otherwise: https://www.themandaringarden.com/aquarium-heater-size-guide.html

Jager out performs every heater listed when it comes to heating per watt.

 

[Fish_Sticks]

Do you have one probe in sump and one in tank? I am just getting ready to start cycling in the next couple of weeks and have the Apex EL. So I only have the one temp probe. Curious how you are using the second?

In case anyone is wondering where to put the ranco probe, it makes the most sense to put it in the main display.
The Ranco probe will tell your heaters that the DT is cold and ready for heat. Then your heaters will check the sump temp with their own internal thermostats and turn on if the sump is cold.

You could put the Ranco probe before the heaters in your sump, but the accuracy wont be as great.

If the heater sticks on, then your dt will heat up by 1 degree and the Ranco will shut it off.

 

[Sagecritter4life]

I run an oversized UV (Pentair) 24/7 and keeps my E260 with remote basement sump right at 79-80 with just standard equipment running like skimmer,pumps, lights etc when the house is set 72F the tank back up heater itself hasnt turned on in over a year and is set at 77 to hopefully pick up the slack if UV kicks off or bulb burns out etc. I run a life gaurd fairly inexpensive digital temp alert unit mounted to side of tank with probe in back of tank to alert high or low outside of 78-81F range. When I turn UV off over the course of 24-36 hours it will drop 3F to 75-76F but easy to catch and cant "Stick" on since on all the time lol...just a thought for some with mid size tanks.

In hotter climates could cause someone to use a chiller but not so far here.

 

[Sagecritter4life]

I have ran two inkbirds and both failed within one year and slowly started reading almost 5 degrees off over time and had to keep changing the temp calibration until finally couldn't trust them. I have read since then where if you buy the inkbird to use silicone to seal around top of where wire goes into probe and they will last much longer ;-) but havnt tried that as switched to different brand on QT tanks.

 

[Fish_Sticks]

Do you fully submerged your heaters. If so that's the helper. Yes, I know they all say submergedable.. keep the head above water help last a lil longer. I burn through heaters too. They fail, that's why you need a controller on them. Controllers prolong their life. Because the heater in its mind is always on. It don't have to click on and off. The controller does it. Saving the on off switch in the heater from wearing.

Is this caused by water entering the head, much like the issue with the inkbird temp probes?

 

[ca1ore]

Well check this out, the data seems to suggest otherwise: https://www.themandaringarden.com/aquarium-heater-size-guide.html

Jager out performs every heater listed when it comes to heating per watt.

I would take those kinds of 'studies' with an enormous grain of salt. Since I can see no reason for difference, assuming all 150 watt heaters are actually 150 watt resistive elements, I would need to understand the experiment methodology and sample size to believe the data is credible.

 

[Engloid]

I would take those kinds of 'studies' with an enormous grain of salt. Since I can see no reason for difference, assuming all 150 watt heaters are actually 150 watt resistive elements, I would need to understand the experiment methodology and sample size to believe the data is credible.

I know that my Apex does not actually say that a 300 watt heater draws the full 300 watts. It is typically around 269 if I remember right. All of them tend to show less than what they are rated at. It may Simply Be the One company's heater puts out closer to its own rating than another does, not so much that anyone is more efficient than another.

 

[BZOFIQ]

3 heaters setup to go in three stages. On my new build (about 350G total) it will be

stage one 300W
stage two 200W
stage three 300W

To further add redundancies, the first two can be plugged via RANCO controllers

Additionally, they should be plugged into a different power strips on your controller (if you have) running off separate circuits.

Hope this helps.

 

[ca1ore]

I know that my Apex does not actually say that a 300 watt heater draws the full 300 watts. It is typically around 269 if I remember right. All of them tend to show less than what they are rated at. It may Simply Be the One company's heater puts out closer to its own rating than another does, not so much that anyone is more efficient than another.

Yes, I agree. THAT is the only thing that actually makes sense why one nominal 300 watt heater would outperform another.