Inkbird confusion!!

[Afrashz]

I have the same issue - I want to use the controller as a guardrail rather than the thermostat as my heater already has one (as most do). Isn't the main point of these controllers redundancy? I contacted Inkbird about it and received this response:

"Hello,
Thanks for contacting us.
Sorry, it cannot be turned off.
It is designed to remind that the temperature can not heat to the target temperature, the heater may have a problem and may pose a threat to fish.
I will share this as a feedback to the technical department, maybe they can improve it in the future.
Sincerely,"

It is a shame as this is such a great controller sans this one issue.

Sounds like you and I are in the same boat oh well. Are you using a Eheim?

 

[VDamian]

Sounds like you and I are in the same boat oh well. Are you using a Eheim?

Nah, I am using a Fluval E heater - I like how it has an LCD screen so I can see the temperature through the back wall in my AIO. I want to use this inkbird so badly since it does the main function of a aquarium controller for just $50. I am even considering switching to a heater that is meant to be controlled like the new BRS heaters.

Though I would still suggest to contact Inkbird about it - maybe if we nag them enough they will fix it? I mean, all they have to do is program an option to shut off the continuous heating alarm.

 

[Afrashz]

Nah, I am using a Fluval E heater - I like how it has an LCD screen so I can see the temperature through the back wall in my AIO. I want to use this inkbird so badly since it does the main function of a aquarium controller for just $50. I am even considering switching to a heater that is meant to be controlled like the new BRS heaters.

Though I would still suggest to contact Inkbird about it - maybe if we nag them enough they will fix it? I mean, all they have to do is program an option to shut off the continuous heating alarm.

Yeah you have a good point

 

[PastorAK]

Ok I’m the same boat here, except slightly different. Mine confirms an issue with the Inkbird controller. I use an Apex and I was using two of its plugs to operate my heaters. My apex worked like a dream. It would come on at 77 and shut off at 79 and it would reach that temp fairly quickly. However, I added the inkbird for redundancy and to save my Apex plugs from wearing out (BRS recommendation). Now I have my Apex set to shut off in the event the temp reaches 80. The inkbird is now programmed to 77-79. However now my tank won’t reach temp. It hovers at 78.7 and I get the continuous heating alarm. Moved it from the standard time of 5 continuous hours of heating to 8 and I still get the stupid alarm. I did not change any heating options on the physical heater themselves. It’s driving me insane.

 

[alton]

My oldest reef Keeper Light is 10 years old controlling my heater and has not wore out yet so I am not sure why apex would? Try turning your heater up a couple degrees.

 

[Afrashz]

Ok I’m the same boat here, except slightly different. Mine confirms an issue with the Inkbird controller. I use an Apex and I was using two of its plugs to operate my heaters. My apex worked like a dream. It would come on at 77 and shut off at 79 and it would reach that temp fairly quickly. However, I added the inkbird for redundancy and to save my Apex plugs from wearing out (BRS recommendation). Now I have my Apex set to shut off in the event the temp reaches 80. The inkbird is now programmed to 77-79. However now my tank won’t reach temp. It hovers at 78.7 and I get the continuous heating alarm. Moved it from the standard time of 5 continuous hours of heating to 8 and I still get the stupid alarm. I did not change any heating options on the physical heater themselves. It’s driving me insane.

I got sick of the alarm and just made the alarm setting for 72 hours, the maximum time frame. Your Inkbird should reach temp in that time frame if not your apex will shut it down

 

[marto]

I have the same issue - I want to use the controller as a guardrail rather than the thermostat as my heater already has one (as most do). Isn't the main point of these controllers redundancy? I contacted Inkbird about it and received this response:

"Hello,
Thanks for contacting us.
Sorry, it cannot be turned off.
It is designed to remind that the temperature can not heat to the target temperature, the heater may have a problem and may pose a threat to fish.
I will share this as a feedback to the technical department, maybe they can improve it in the future.
Sincerely,"

It is a shame as this is such a great controller sans this one issue.

I brought this just for redundancy. I'll send Inkbird an email.

 

[marto]

I brought this just for redundancy. I'll send Inkbird an email.

I talked to Inkbird today and they are going create a way to disable the continuous heating alarm in a future model. I was hoping they could do a firmware update but we would have to buy a new device.

 

[Afrashz]

I talked to Inkbird today and they are going create a way to disable the continuous heating alarm in a future model. I was hoping they could do a firmware update but we would have to buy a new device.

Good news, thanks for the info!!! Kinda lame we can’t just update our current models though

 

[Coralcrave]

Good news, thanks for the info!!! Kinda lame we can’t just update our current models though

I’m glad I recently bought mine. Just going to buy another one and return this one.

 

[SteveG_inDC]

I'm reviving this thread because I am truly mystified by the continuous heating and I have another Inkbird question that's not answered yet.

I about 250 gallons of water in my system and using two 300-watt Eheim-Jagr heaters on the inkbird. My temp has stayed rock solid within the range of my T1 and T2 at 81.2. (I was keeping temp high because it was cycling), but the continuous heating alarm comes on every cycle without fail. I set it to 72 hours, but I still get complaints from my wife and kids when it goes off and I have to reset it.

1. Could this mean that my heaters are still underpowered for this tank?
2. If there are two plugs, how are they used? Is one the default and the other a backup, because they are not labeled. Do they both turn on and off together? DOes one turn on and the other comes on if needed? How does this even work?

Thanks in advance for any Inkbird insights.

 

[shanescycling]

I'm reviving this thread because I am truly mystified by the continuous heating and I have another Inkbird question that's not answered yet.

I about 250 gallons of water in my system and using two 300-watt Eheim-Jagr heaters on the inkbird. My temp has stayed rock solid within the range of my T1 and T2 at 81.2. (I was keeping temp high because it was cycling), but the continuous heating alarm comes on every cycle without fail. I set it to 72 hours, but I still get complaints from my wife and kids when it goes off and I have to reset it.

1. Could this mean that my heaters are still underpowered for this tank?
2. If there are two plugs, how are they used? Is one the default and the other a backup, because they are not labeled. Do they both turn on and off together? DOes one turn on and the other comes on if needed? How does this even work?

Thanks in advance for any Inkbird insights.

I am still a newbie with the InkBird but when I got the alarms initially heating my tank I set the continuous heat time to 0, and have never had any warnings anymore, yet it still will shut off at the temperature levels.
I believe both plugs operate under the same controls and their is no default and back up

 

[Afrashz]

To combat this, every night I reset the continuous heating time, I would change it to 70, save, then turn it back to 72. It’s annoying but keeps the alarm from going off and heaters from turning off.

 

[muggle reefer]

We have this unit, I found it confusing to set up personally. We are running two 200 watt eheim Jagers on our tank, I was getting constant alarms when we set it up initially at 78 degrees, we set up the app and i adjusted the continuous heat time to 6 hour cut off and that has worked for our heaters. At least from the app you can up the continuous time until the alarm does not go off. I will run this for a year and next year for black friday we may upgrade to a controller like neptune. Enough money spent this year though.

 

[KeMiKiLL]

I'm reviving this thread because I am truly mystified by the continuous heating and I have another Inkbird question that's not answered yet.

I about 250 gallons of water in my system and using two 300-watt Eheim-Jagr heaters on the inkbird. My temp has stayed rock solid within the range of my T1 and T2 at 81.2. (I was keeping temp high because it was cycling), but the continuous heating alarm comes on every cycle without fail. I set it to 72 hours, but I still get complaints from my wife and kids when it goes off and I have to reset it.

1. Could this mean that my heaters are still underpowered for this tank?
2. If there are two plugs, how are they used? Is one the default and the other a backup, because they are not labeled. Do they both turn on and off together? DOes one turn on and the other comes on if needed? How does this even work?

Thanks in advance for any Inkbird insights.

If I recall correctly, the Eheim instructions for the Jagr heaters says that they should be calibrated when first deployed. Even if you have it set to 81.2F it may never reach it if calibration is off. Your heater should be set to slightly higher than your Inkbird upper threshold cutoff, that way the heater's internal thermostat doesn't shut it down before reaching the Inkbird temp.

 

[wet_rocks_reef]

Question.. I am looking at this same problem,.. Cobalt mentioned on there site to set the inkbird Higher in temp by a degree.

"Cobalt Neo_Them"
SPECIAL NOTE for use with Aquarium Controllers:

Please set temperatures higher than temperature of heater on all controllers.
APEX users: Please be sure to plug your Neo-Therm Pro into plug 4 or 8.
Digital Aquatics users: Neo-Therms can be plugged into any port without issue."

I wonder if I use a Kasa smart plug to schedule "turn off" the inkbird for a minute every 48 hours. So that the continuous alarm will never activate as I set the Alarm duration to 72 hours?

will that work?

 

[KyleC]

My understanding of how this controller works is the following... although I've only set it up yesterday so still trying to work it out!

I've set;
T1 - desired temperature.. 25°C
T2 - lowest acceptable temperature... 24.5°C
AH - high temp alarm... 26°C
AL - low temp alarm... 24°C
Continuous Heating Time... 3 hours (shouldn't need more than that to hit T1, if so, something wrong).

I have 2 heaters connected: 1x200W & 1x300W

200W set to 24.5°C approx
300W set to 26°C approx

So once tank hits 25, it stops heating, and if it drops to 24.5 it will begin heating again.. allows 0.5°C fluctuation.

200W is more of a backup should 300W fail.
300W is set higher than T1 to make sure it runs at high enough temperature.

What confuses me is, my tank has yet to hit the T2 value... so I assume it is heating up again before it does? If so... does T2 even matter? Do the heaters come on when the temp deviates a certain value from T1 as opposed to hitting T2?

Why is this so confusing -_-

 

[Gtinnel]

My understanding of how this controller works is the following... although I've only set it up yesterday so still trying to work it out!

I've set;
T1 - desired temperature.. 25°C
T2 - lowest acceptable temperature... 24.5°C
AH - high temp alarm... 26°C
AL - low temp alarm... 24°C
Continuous Heating Time... 3 hours (shouldn't need more than that to hit T1, if so, something wrong).

I have 2 heaters connected: 1x200W & 1x300W

200W set to 24.5°C approx
300W set to 26°C approx

So once tank hits 25, it stops heating, and if it drops to 24.5 it will begin heating again.. allows 0.5°C fluctuation.

200W is more of a backup should 300W fail.
300W is set higher than T1 to make sure it runs at high enough temperature.

What confuses me is, my tank has yet to hit the T2 value... so I assume it is heating up again before it does? If so... does T2 even matter? Do the heaters come on when the temp deviates a certain value from T1 as opposed to hitting T2?

Why is this so confusing -_-

Your understanding how the controller works seems correct, but what T1 and T2 are are different on my controller. Although I don’t think it will let you set the “turn on” temp high than the “turn off” temp

On my inkbird T1 is the temp where the heaters turn on, T2 is when they turn off. So it will heat until it reaches T2 then turn the heaters off until it cools down to T1, then starts the cycle over.

Is there any chance that it is other things in your tank (pumps, UV, wave makers, etc) that are keeping your tank at temp and not your heaters? If your InkBird is working correctly it shouldn’t turn the heaters on until it reaches the lower temperature.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

my settings, not sure if it helps. but mine gets to 78 and the heater shuts off until it goes back to 77.5. the residual heat is going to be there from the lights heating the water. my temp probs are not in the light area, very dark.

 

[KyleC]

Your understanding how the controller works seems correct, but what T1 and T2 are are different on my controller. Although I don’t think it will let you set the “turn on” temp high than the “turn off” temp

On my inkbird T1 is the temp where the heaters turn on, T2 is when they turn off. So it will heat until it reaches T2 then turn the heaters off until it cools down to T1, then starts the cycle over.

Is there any chance that it is other things in your tank (pumps, UV, wave makers, etc) that are keeping your tank at temp and not your heaters? If your InkBird is working correctly it shouldn’t turn the heaters on until it reaches the lower temperature.

It's designed so that it will choose the lower of the two T values as the low temp setting and vice versa... going by the manual so that's grand.

It's unlikely that my other equipment is contributing to the temperature significantly as when I had a heater malfunction recently my temp quickly dropped to 23. I'll let it run a few days then check the graph to see... as we'd expect to see it hit both T values...

Next question then... ideally we want it to be as close to set temp as possible... I take it the reason most people give a 0.5 degree difference is to avoid the heaters coming on/off too often?