Help picking a smaller heater

[EmdeReef]

I have a 150W Eheim jager in my reefer 350, which I know is undersized but even at 13" difficult to fit. Not crazy the way I have to put it next to my skimmer as is... It works for as long as I'm around, if I have anyone house sitting and they open the window when cold or don't turn the heat and maintain room temp, the tank temp fluctuates a lot.

Any suggestions for a smaller/shorter (or same length) but stronger heater that's as reliable as the jager?

(I like the design of those Cobalts but will never get another one after one exploding in my tank, I know they supposedly fixed the issue but no thanks.)

Appreciate all suggestions!

 

[Denisk]

What about running two of them side by side. They’re my go to heaters so I don’t have any other suggestions

Hopefully someone can give you a good suggestion!

 

[Greybeard]

Jagers are known to be large...

The Finex line with titanium tubes work pretty well. Much smaller, anyway. I have the 800w Finex tube, the one without a temp controller on it at all, plugged into my Apex. Works pretty well for me. I have a real hard time trusting the built in thermostats on heaters... probably the biggest single point of failure that can take out your entire tank. I'd consider some sort of heater controller a required item. The Inkbird temp controllers are cheap (Amazon), and have a pretty good reputation.

 

[EmdeReef]

What about running two of them side by side. They’re my go to heaters so I don’t have any other suggestions

Hopefully someone can give you a good suggestion!

Thanks, I was thinking maybe adding another 75W, but it's not much smaller than the 150..and there's no room for 2 ugh...

Jagers are known to be large...

The Finex line with titanium tubes work pretty well. Much smaller, anyway. I have the 800w Finex tube, the one without a temp controller on it at all, plugged into my Apex. Works pretty well for me. I have a real hard time trusting the built in thermostats on heaters... probably the biggest single point of failure that can take out your entire tank. I'd consider some sort of heater controller a required item. The Inkbird temp controllers are cheap (Amazon), and have a pretty good reputation.

Thank you. I'll look into finnex. Definitely would never run any heater without a controller, currently controlled by my Profilux. Just trying to make sure it's something that won't fail as usually failures happen when you're traveling

 

[Big G]

+1 on the Finnex Titanium heaters with external Finnex controller. Very stable.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

Won Bros Titanium with Inkbird controller or Finnex with it's own controller. Both are good options.

 

[EmdeReef]

Many thanks everyone! Decided to pick up a Won Bros 300W smallest/strongest option at ~10" (never heard of it before as my go to has always been the jager).

 

[don_chuwish]

Always best to have two heaters, and two layers of controller. I have two 300W Finnex on my 120G. Each with their own Inkbird AND the Apex.
Inkbirds are the failsafe - set slightly higher than the actual target temp. Apex turns them on/off according to its temp probe and my schedule programming. Each heater covers half the day, but both heaters can come on if temp drops too low (during maintenance, power outage, dumb user events, etc.). They are plugged into separate EB8 power strips:

Heater 1:
Fallback OFF
If Temp < 77.8 Then ON
If Temp > 78.2 Then OFF
If Time 00:00 to 11:59 Then OFF
If Temp < 77.6 Then ON
If Temp < 75.0 Then OFF
If FeedA 006 Then OFF
If FeedB 045 Then OFF
If Power Apex Off 000 Then OFF

Heater 2:
Fallback ON
If Temp < 77.8 Then ON
If Temp > 78.2 Then OFF
If Time 12:00 to 23:59 Then OFF
If Temp < 77.6 Then ON
If FeedA 006 Then OFF
If FeedB 045 Then OFF
If Power Apex Off 000 Then OFF