What heater should I get??!?

[ReefHomieJon]

Summer is over, my chiller is chillin.
The tank needs a heater before it gets cold. Should of had one already I kno lol but I haven’t needed one yet but ANYWAY
I was going to get a JBJ titanium but it has terrible online reviews. What brand and wattage do y’all recommend? I have about 150- 175ga total water volume(125 gallon DT with 140 lb of live rock and 100 ga. Sump)

 

[foxt]

I have had luck with Eheim Jagers. For size, are you able to keep all the heaters in the sump and keep the wires out of the DT?

 

[ReefHomieJon]

Yup. Sump is downstairs in my garage. Display is upstairs in the loft

 

[ReefHomieJon]

I have had luck with Eheim Jagers. For size, are you able to keep all the heaters in the sump and keep the wires out of the DT?

I’m gonna look that brand up. Thanks

 

[madweazl]

I'm partial to Visi-therm even though there was an issue while back. In 20+ years, I've never had one fail (2.5 years old in our 75g now).

Edit: I grabbed Ehiem Jagers for our 150g but I dont remember why.

 

[Carolinablur3]

I’ve used Cobalt neo-therm heaters on QTs and garage tanks for years with no issues. If it gets really cold where you live, you would probably need 2 or 3 200watt heaters for your size tank...which might be expensive. They used to have a 300 watt heater but I haven’t seen one for sale in awhile

 

[ReefHomieJon]

I’m gonna look that brand up. Thanks

I'm partial to Visi-therm even though there was an issue while back. In 20+ years, I've never had one fail (2.5 years old in our 75g now).

Edit: I grabbed Ehiem Jagers for our 150g but I dont remember why.

thanks I’m gonna compare

 

[ReefHomieJon]

I’ve used Cobalt neo-therm heaters on QTs and garage tanks for years with no issues. If it gets really cold where you live, you would probably need 2 or 3 200watt heaters for your size tank...which might be expensive. They used to have a 300 watt heater but I haven’t seen one for sale in awhile

Ok cuz yea I was gonna just try and find one 500-1000w

 

[WVNed]

If you buy big heaters pay attention to the length. You end up with one that wont fit anywhere.
I am running 2 x 300 and 1 200.
All Eheim

 

[foxt]

Ok cuz yea I was gonna just try and find one 500-1000w

I'd suggest you not do that. It becomes a single point of failure, you lose the heater you're in trouble. Instead, most people get several smaller sized heaters, and set them up to come on at different level temps (all come on at colder temps, but they start dropping out as the tank gets warmer).

 

[ReefHomieJon]

Dang everybody with the different info lol. I said I was gonna do that and then the fish store told me it’s better to get a higher wattage one because essentially 2 smaller heaters don’t produce as much heat as a larger one. Like 2 200w heaters don’t produce as much heat as one 400w heater on larger systems.

 

[ReefHomieJon]

If you buy big heaters pay attention to the length. You end up with one that wont fit anywhere.
I am running 2 x 300 and 1 200.
All Eheim

What’s your total water volume?

 

[phatduckk]

I run 2 Eheim Jagers in my sump & have a spare in case one dies.

I also ran into the length issue. It wasn't easy to find a single heater I liked that would fit into my available space so I went for 2 & control them via my apex

 

[foxt]

Dang everybody with the different info lol. I said I was gonna do that and then the fish store told me it’s better to get a higher wattage one because essentially 2 smaller heaters don’t produce as much heat as a larger one. Like 2 200w heaters don’t produce as much heat as one 400w heater on larger systems.

Well, I have a 220g DT upstairs, and about 100g of sump in the basement, with about 1400gph flow between them. I keep my upstairs at around 69 in the winter, and the basment gets a little colder. Two 300w heaters in the sump keep up just fine all winter. I probably pick up heat from my submersible return pump and my lights, but even so, both heaters don't always need to come on at the same time.

 

[madweazl]

2, 200w heaters on our 150g. I'm prefer multiple smaller heaters to one larger as well.

 

[WVNed]

Soon to be 400+ gallons. A 240, 20, 75 and sump to run it all.
I may need more. I haven't run this through a winter yet.
My Inkbird will run 1000 watts. I may need to upgrade that too.

 

[redfishbluefish]

I'm an Eheim Jager user. For me, the best heater out there...but they are long. Also strongly agree with at least two heaters. No matter what brand you go with, they do fail. And if it's one heater dying, at least the other one will attempt to maintain temperature. If it's a stuck ON failure, this is why you want to get a temperature controller. I'd recommend either a Ranco or Inkbird. Both are quality controllers, but you do need to get a truly waterproof sensor.

Here's the chart for Eheim's. Don't know what your garage situation is as far as being heated, but my first though is two 250's, if they will fit. If it's a heated garage, two 200's would be fine. Eheim's are long.

 

[DarkSky]

I run two 150w Eheim Jagers in my 275g system. My basement is usually 70F year round so they're more than adequate.

Like others said, you should get two under powered heaters vs one heater in case one fails. If one fails on, it'll take a long time to heat your system up to a problem temperature, if one fails off, the other should keep your tank warm enough for you to notice the issue.

The other benefit of those Jagers is they're cheap, so you might want to consider replacing them yearly as part of normal maintenance before they go bad.

 

[Saltyreef]

Eheim jagers are a good basic heater. +1 on running multiple smaller heaters. Much safer than one large heater that could cook the entire tank when it fails on or when it fails off, no redundancy to help keep the tank heated just a bit.

I went with the hygger titanium heaters with built in controllers. They work better than any of my other heater setups ever did even when i had them running on an inkbird. The inkbird eventually failed.
Now i have two completely redundant heaters on two completely redundant controllers. I dont lose sleep at night.

 

[BayouReefer]

I definitely recommend the multi heater option just as others have said for redundancy.