Ehiem Jager 150 watt Heater

[b.clark]

Can these heaters be totally underwater and horizontal vs vertical

 

[DCR]

I think it is a mistake to operate them with the head submerged. The heating cycling on and off requires the unit to breathe in and out to handle the expansion of the gases inside and my thinking is that this will lead to moisture ingress. Just my personal opinion but I have had very long life with these units when operated with the head above the water line. I think that is the reason many people experience short lives and recommend replacing them so frequently.

 

[b.clark]

Only place I have to put this is in my return overflow. Do you think I would be ok putting 2 of these in the overflow so I have a back up

 

[Ironwill723]

Yes you will be fine either way. I have run these for 20+ years.

 

[Jamie814]

The heating cycling on and off requires the unit to breathe in and out to handle the expansion of the gases inside and my thinking is that this will lead to moisture ingress.

Huh?
I have ran Jager heaters for the last 15 years across all my aquariums. Always had them horizontally in the sump fully submerged and never had an issue with one of them.

 

[Jamie814]

Only place I have to put this is in my return overflow.

Not sure what a "return overflow" is (return chamber? or tank overflow drain?)

As long as you are sure that they will always be submerged its fine, they cannot run dry.
If your return pump stops or fails, will they still be submerged?

 

[00W]

Can these heaters be totally underwater and horizontal vs vertical

Yes.

 

[00W]

Huh?
I have ran Jager heaters for the last 15 years across all my aquariums. Always had them horizontally in the sump fully submerged and never had an issue with one of them.

^^^Exactly.

 

[Rusty_L_Shackleford]

I think it is a mistake to operate them with the head submerged. The heating cycling on and off requires the unit to breathe in and out to handle the expansion of the gases inside and my thinking is that this will lead to moisture ingress. Just my personal opinion but I have had very long life with these units when operated with the head above the water line. I think that is the reason many people experience short lives and recommend replacing them so frequently.

Personally I recommend replacing heaters frequently because 1) they're cheap and 2) they're so prone to failure

You're Heater is probably fine...but what if it's not. I've had heaters fail. Ive also had heaters that functioned for years. I have an inkbird on all my displays and its saved my bacon before. I mean for all the time effort and money I have in my tank, replacing a $30 or $40 peace of gear every year is cheap for peace of mind. I'll keep the old one as a backup or use it in a qt tank or whatever.

 

[Idech]

You're Heater is probably fine...but what if it's not. I've had heaters fail. Ive also had heaters that functioned for years. I have an inkbird on all my displays and its saved my bacon before. I mean for all the time effort and money I have in my tank, replacing a $30 or $40 peace of gear every year is cheap for peace of mind. I'll keep the old one as a backup or use it in a qt tank or whatever.

Why throw it away if it’s working ? Eheim heaters are very durable. I have one that‘s 15 years old in my tank. As long as you have redundancy (with a younger one) and a controller, not much can happen. One of them is enough to heat my tank and I doubt the two of them will die at the same time.

 

[Rusty_L_Shackleford]

Why throw it away if it’s working ? Eheim heaters are very durable. I have one that‘s 15 years old in my tank. As long as you have redundancy (with a younger one) and a controller, not much can happen. One of them is enough to heat my tank and I doubt the two of them will die at the same time.

I agree that eheims are some of the best heaters you can buy and are for the most part reliable. But I have had them fail. Just like any component can fail. Heaters in this example are just cheap and easy to replace. Most people will probably be fine running a quality heater for years. But given some past experience and the fact that heater failures can be so catastrophic, it just makes me feel better to just replace them periodically. Its a $40 piece of gear vs hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of livestock. I have multiple tanks tho, so I kind of rotate them through. Display tank gets new one, the one that was in the display gets used for quarantine or project tank, whatever was in there gets rotated to storage as backup. To be honest I'm a bit of an equipment hoarder. I have enough gear stashed away I can swap out almost any failing component on a tank in an emergency with something that will get me by until I can get it sorted properly.