Heater input for basement sump

[mygsris2slo4u]

I posted this in my build thread but didn’t get much input. Hoping you equipment junkies could help me.

Today the house got down to 65 degrees which is about where we keep the heat in the winter. I found out quickly that my 500w of finnex HMX-s heaters could not keep up. They are set to 79 degrees and the tank has been as low as 77.

I do not believe it's due to the size of the heaters, but the fact that they have an internal thermostat which causes them to continually cycle on and off and do not stay on for extended periods at all. @BRS mentioned this in their heater review video. I find that with this they are not even on when the definitely should be.

I'm considering the following options.

- One 800w titanium finnex with ranco controller (this would not be able to be backed up by apex as it exceeds the 7 amp capacity of the eb832 outlets)

- Two 500w titanium finnex with individual ranco's (this would allow me to plug into eb832s, but this would almost max out the 832s 15a/1500w capacity)

- Three 300w ehiem jagers with one ranco controller (the internal ehiem thermostats would act as back up to the ranco since it wouldn't be tied to apex controller

I've considered the water heater titanium heat exchanger aproach, but I don't think it's necessary on a roughly 200 gallon system.

Any other ideas that I should consider?

 

[Hitman]

We keep our house at 68 in the winter ( well what we call winter down here in the south ) and I 2 of the Finnex 500 watt titanium heaters without built in temp control hooked into a single outlet on my reefkeeper with no issues. Together they are pulling 6.3 amps when both on. I have a 0.2 F temp swing per my reefkeeper data logger.

 

[ca1ore]

I would have thought 500 watts to be sufficient for that size system, so sounds like the heaters don't work properly (or aren't good heaters). I think redundancy is always important, so more smaller units is better then fewer larger. I run three 300 watt eheims through apex and a 500 watt Finnex via a ranco, but not connected to apex. So 1,400 total watts for about 700 system gallons.

 

[mygsris2slo4u]

I would have thought 500 watts to be sufficient for that size system, so sounds like the heaters don't work properly (or aren't good heaters). I think redundancy is always important, so more smaller units is better then fewer larger. I run three 300 watt eheims through apex and a 500 watt Finnex via a ranco, but not connected to apex. So 1,400 total watts for about 700 system gallons.

I’m thinking it’s the heaters themselves and not the wattage. I had an extra Eheim Jager 300w that I put in and it’s maintaining the temp. I also have a 500w Finnex tube and Ranco on order.