I'm a broken record when it comes to heaters. But, this is advice I was given years ago, and it hasn't hurt me yet! Rather than one heater in your tank, divide the watts by two, and buy two. Heaters fail catastrophically in one direction or the other. All heat, or all nothing. If one of your heaters goes cold, the other will work a little harder - and maybe keep the tank warm enough. If one of your heaters goes full on HEAT, the other will kick off and (hopefully) prevent the tank from hitting death zone temps.
I'm a broken record when it comes to heaters. But, this is advice I was given years ago, and it hasn't hurt me yet! Rather than one heater in your tank, divide the watts by two, and buy two. Heaters fail catastrophically in one direction or the other. All heat, or all nothing. If one of your heaters goes cold, the other will work a little harder - and maybe keep the tank warm enough. If one of your heaters goes full on HEAT, the other will kick off and (hopefully) prevent the tank from hitting death zone temps.
That is excellent advise. But it not relevant if you have a controller that serves as the thermostat and will email you if the temp goes over or under set temperatures!
You are right, of course. Unless you are the irresponsible sort like me who checks my phone's email about once ever two weeks... I guess if my fishes lives depended on it, I might check more often!
That is excellent advise. But it not relevant if you have a controller that serves as the thermostat and will email you if the temp goes over or under set temperatures!
Tom
The Apex does do a great job. But you will want to set up a fail safe on the heater even with the Apex. I had mine go nuts last year when the brain went on the fritz!! Lucky for us the chiller was able to keep the temp from going thru the roof!!
Kinda talked me into an apex. Bought a used one with a lab grade ph probe from a guy on another forum. It is about a year old so I'm hoping everything will last a while.
Binford... what kind of failsafe could you put on it with an apex? I really don't want to invest in a chiller just for that.
Thanks again people! I'm sure I will be picking your brains about the apex programming when I get it hooked up.
Kinda talked me into an apex. Bought a used one with a lab grade ph probe from a guy on another forum. It is about a year old so I'm hoping everything will last a while.
Binford... what kind of failsafe could you put on it with an apex? I really don't want to invest in a chiller just for that.
Thanks again people! I'm sure I will be picking your brains about the apex programming when I get it hooked up.
I used the Finnex controller.i plugged the finnex into the Apex and the heater to the finnex that way if the Apex failed again the finnex thermocuplar would turn the heater on and off even tho the Apex was running the heater at full power. Make sense??
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Originally Posted by dlhirst
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