Poll: Best Heater Brand

dbl · Nov 20, 2017

@427HISS made a good suggestion about a poll on heaters. It's a common question - what's the best heater? Just talking brands here for this poll. So what's your favorite brand? Feel free to discuss reasons or experiences.

madweazl · Nov 20, 2017

Jager has a reputation that is tough to beat in the industry but they're so long compared to some of the others out there. I moved to Visi-therm heaters because of this when they first came out and have never had one fail (knock on wood).

Luno · Nov 20, 2017

Jager for me. First heaters I had and haven't let me down since maybe 10 heaters later

AdamNC · Nov 20, 2017

Been using a ViaAqua for the past 12 years. 10 years without a controller and the recent 2 years on my Apex.

revhtree · Nov 20, 2017

I'm really loving my Finnex Titanium.

Jl330 · Nov 20, 2017

I've been using the same eheim jager for about 6 years. I had it on my freshwater tank and then cleaned it up and moved it to the salt when i switched. I went through a few others before I bought that one.

Im sure I just jynxed myself.

SDReefer · Nov 20, 2017

Aqueon Pro Heater! I like the plastic construction and reliability.

Ishy · Nov 20, 2017

Lots of people over here including myself use Schego titanium heaters.

Brew12 · Nov 20, 2017

I'm a fan of any of the titanium heaters with a 3 prong plug. They act as their own ground probe!

Daltrey · Nov 20, 2017

Two Eheim Jager's with Tru Temp tied into my Apex. If they stick on and overheat the tank they get shut down by the apex. If you set one a little higher and the other quits working your tank will still maintain temp. If they run dry they automatically shut down. Three failsafes for the cheapest but one of the most important pieces of life support on your tank.

Big G · Nov 20, 2017

Finnex Titanium in the DT
Aqueon Pro in QTs

Nburg's Reef · Nov 20, 2017

I have had probably a total of 10 tanks in the last 11 years of reefing and I have never had a Jager go south. Hands down my pick. However, all things can fail, so I keep them on a controller program and have duplicate heaters in the system ready to roll so there is another layer of failure protection.

Rakie · Nov 20, 2017

Nburg said:
I have had probably a total of 10 tanks in the last 11 years of reefing and I have never had a Jager go south. Hands down my pick. However, all things can fail, so I keep them on a controller program and have duplicate heaters in the system ready to roll so there is another layer of failure protection.

I've had multiple jagers fail on me.

The only heater I haven't had fail on me is Finnex -- Although having had many, many, many heaters fail on me since I was a kid... It's only a matter of time.

427HISS · Nov 20, 2017

Daltrey said:
Two Eheim Jager's with Tru Temp tied into my Apex. If they stick on and overheat the tank they get shut down by the apex. If you set one a little higher and the other quits working your tank will still maintain temp. If they run dry they automatically shut down. Three failsafes for the cheapest but one of the most important pieces of life support on your tank.

I wish I could afford a apex to control several products and more important to me, warnings, but it will be a while for one.
If all of us loose fish/corals because of a heater, we'd wish we had a controller, even a low cost unit !

fishbox · Nov 20, 2017

I use Eheim Jagers.
This vid is like 7mos old but has great info.

120reefkeeper · Nov 20, 2017

I've used many different ones over the years and unfortunately they are all prone to failure. That being said , my Apex classic has saved my tanks more than once.

ChiCity · Nov 20, 2017

Since everyone is fearful of heaters eventually failing...
How many years do you all actually get out of em before replacing?

By the way, I used to think cobalt neotherm were junk based on the fiasco a few years back...
But on recommendation from a fellow r2r’er, i went ahead and bought them.
I’ve been liking them so far, they’re flat and not too long which makes them quite low profile.
The 150w fits nicely in my sump

reeferfoxx · Nov 20, 2017

I had an Ehiem fail on me in 6 months.. Switched to finnex and have three 150w's going strong for at least 3 years now.

Digigill · Nov 20, 2017

Had a Via Aqua Titanium for about a year but the temp would always reset to the factory default when it lost power so I used my Apex to control it. But that turned out to be a mistake as one day a power glitch caused my apex to freeze and it turned out that the heater's thermostat had stopped working and was stuck on and cooked all my fish. Now I never let the Apex control the temp and only use the external thermostats for that and the Apex is just a backup to kill the power if the temp gets to high. That way if it state seeing the temp a degree or so higher that normal I know the thermostat is drifting and is stuck on.

I've had several Jager TruTemp's for about two years that I like but I've also had one of these fail on.

I have a Pro Aquatics Hydro that's been around for over 10 years. The thermostat is way off from the markings on it but it is still running well otherwise.

I have had a couple of Neo-Therm heaters but one of them died and stuck on. The other is still running good.

My direction now is to use the Finnex TH Titanium heaters paired with a standalone thermostat something like an [URL='https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01486LZ50/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1']Inkbird ITC-306T [/URL]and the Apex keeping an eye on everything. I've calculated the average wattage used in a day to maintain the tank temp and found that I can have one small heater run constantly (for the most part) and a second much larger one that only kicks in as needed (about twice a day) when the small one gets behind or when I do a water change. This greatly reduces the number of on\off cycling the thermostats have to do which will hopefully greatly extend their life.