Help me sleep at night!

MSCMMSHEEPDOG · Sep 27, 2020

Just finished cycling my tank and have been reading all the horror story posts about runaway heaters. I just wanted to get some advice on a plan I have in mind to provide extra redundancy to the heating system. My tank is a Red Sea 525XL (139 gallons total water volume).

I was thinking of (2) 200 watt Schego heaters controlled by an Inkbird wireless enabled controller model ITC- 306A, but then going a step further and plugging the Inkbird ITC-306A controller into another Inkbird heater controller model C929A that has it’s own dual probes. Setting the secondary controller with a slightly wider temperature spread to act as a backup if the primary controller should fail. So as I see it I would have 3 layers of protection against a runaway heater. The 2 lower wattage heaters, the primary heater controller, and the secondary heater controller.

So to those who know more than I, would this setup work to provide the extra redundancy I am thinking it would, so I can sleep at night. Thank you for your input.

Billldg · Sep 27, 2020

MSCMMSHEEPDOG said:
Just finished cycling my tank and have been reading all the horror story posts about runaway heaters. I just wanted to get some advice on a plan I have in mind to provide extra redundancy to the heating system. My tank is a Red Sea 525XL (139 gallons total water volume).

I was thinking of (2) 200 watt Schego heaters controlled by an Inkbird wireless enabled controller model ITC- 306A, but then going a step further and plugging the Inkbird ITC-306A controller into another Inkbird heater controller model C929A that has it’s own dual probes. Setting the secondary controller with a slightly wider temperature spread to act as a backup if the primary controller should fail. So as I see it I would have 3 layers of protection against a runaway heater. The 2 lower wattage heaters, the primary heater controller, and the secondary heater controller.

So to those who know more than I, would this setup work to provide the extra redundancy I am thinking it would, so I can sleep at night. Thank you for your input.

I would actually get 2 heaters that have their own t-stat, instead of pugging one Inkbrid into another. The next step would be to have a aquarium controller controlling the Inkbird. I have my Fennix Titanium heaters plugged into my Apex. The Finnex heaters have a t-stat and I use the Apex to back them up.

On my upgrade I will use a BRS heater controller to control the heaters and the Apex to back it up.

Seriously though, you have to remember that their are 10's of thousands of heaters and tanks out there, you only hear of the failures, so I really isn't that common. So don't loose sleep over it.

Tired · Sep 27, 2020

Yeah, two thermostats worth of failure prevention should do it. You absolutely COULD plug two Inkbirds into each other, of course. I suppose if you have the extra money, you may as well. But it's probably overkill.