Heaters....suggestion please...

[henryD]

I have been using Ebo mainly. I find that I am going through an Ebo every 6-9 months. So I have been thinkng of changing or trying new brands.

If you have any suggestions please let me know.

Also it would be great to find a heater that would prevent frying tanks. I have heard so many horror stories about broken heaters staying on and cooking a whole tank of discus.

I don't know about you but I have so much invested in my tank that I would be devasted if that occurs. So if they make a heater that prevents that then for sure let me know.

Henry

[Jason]

good topic!

6 of my suggestions are on the way!

[Carol_Roberts]

. . . . lol, and what are your 6 suggestions, Jason?

[Tad]

Henry,
Im having pretty good luck with my VisiTherms...

Regards,
Tad

[crazy4discus]

all my heaters are from tronic works pretty good for me

[daninthesand]

Hmmmmm...Jason...do I predict yet another "simply fall sale" :)

Ohhh now i get it..... ;)

[April]

Ive heard great things about sera heaters. saw some in the store the other day. they look good. i am gonna get one or two and try them out.
i have about ten ebos in a big pile now...all mixed togeather and i no longer know which works and which doesnt. so...now what to do with them? maybe they will work for a guppy tank?

[chinoz]

Question for you guys...on the Ebo heater it said "Do not immerge at this level" on top of the heater.. I've seen people immerge the heater all the way down at the bottom of the tank. Will this cause any problem in the future? ???

[April]

most of us submerge them. the reason they put that is for the electrical rules to have them approved. you get more even heat on their sides and..with discus if their upright and they want to spawn,,,,and no cone..they will start using the heater for a cone. so..they get bad habits. thats one reason i lay mine on their side. actually mine are laying loose on the bottom. the suction cups are only good for a short while anyhow.

[chinoz]

Thanks April for clearing that up for me... ;D

[jeep]

Henry,

I really like my Pro Heat Titaniums. Very sensitive controller though. I taped mine so there's no chance for it to get bumped.

Brian

[henryD]

Well after doing some searching and asking around I have bought 2 products to try.

The first one is the titanium pro heater and also some sera heaters. Hopefully these will last me longer and have better luck with it....Well let everyone know how I feel about them in after a couple months of use.


Henry

[acorn54]

what ever heaters you use don't rely on them. everytime you feed your discus put your hand in the tank water to make sure that the water is at the proper temperature.

[Rob R.]

Hi all,
I recently switched to pro-heat titaniums and I think they're the best out there right now. They have the external temp. control which is great, and I haven't had a single one fail or give me any problems at all. They are also unbreakable which is great for tanks with larger fish. Soon I will have switched all my tanks over to them. Highly Recommended :)
Rob
R.

[brewmaster15]

I've come to the conclusion that they are all about as reliable as the next brand.

looking back on all Ebo failures I have to wonder if we "Skewed" the frequency of failure by so many of us using ebos on these boards.

I wonder if we would see the same.. if we all switched to any other brand.

I think the only things you can do to prevent fish soup are...

1. heat the room , not the tanks
2. install temperature alarms on your tanks
3. use combinations of smaller heaters to heat your tanks.. not one large heater. Then if one fails.. theres less a chance of poached pigeon bloods.

so what am I doing in my tanks... basically number3 and The heaters I currently favor are the Rena cals.

hth,
al

[daninthesand]

Good thread.

I have disassembled numerous brands of heaters including EBOs (new and old green ones), tronics, visitherms, and a couple of hang on tank types. The most common failures i was able to determine were these:

1. Most of the failures of the ebos was due to contact points sticking together.
2. All of the visitherms were damaged by the adjusting screw rusting, rendering it unable to be adjusted.

Heaters that failed to heat high enough or were otherwise losing their calibration could easily be repaired. (the ebos more so than the visitherms. the tronics-forget it)

The tronics....well thats a toughy. No points (they're electronic) so i could never determine what made the heater fail exactly. I find though that the tronics I've had were prone to leaking, which probably led to their failure.

Al, I think you hit the nail on the head. The EBO's by far were the most common heaters among discus people. There was a day when you HAD to have them. Well sooner or later they were bound to fail and of course a lot of people complained about it. So they got a bad rep. As people move onto other brands the same will happen.

The heaters are inexpensive in general and can only be so effective or foolproof.

I think a combination of what you listed to safely heat the tanks is to heat the room and use small heaters to bring the temp up higher in those tanks you wish to do so. Its what I plan to do this winter once i start needing to run my furnace.


Of the three types i use (EBO VISITHERM AND TRONIC)
The ebos are the easiest to calibrate and have the thickest glass. But they can get stuck ON.
The tronics rarely lose their calibration. And they leak.
The visitherms leak a lot and once they do, become useless. They too tend to stick ON.

If I had to pick one of these three, it would be whichever happened to be on sale! ;D

Daniel

[Tristanyyz]

Why doesnt someone invent an inline water heater like those used in kitchens at office buildings?

They are a unit that is plugged in, and is attached to your cold water supply. The water that comes out is like 200 degrees. Can these units be adjusted to supply 86 F?

Why doesnt someone manufacture an inline that hooks to your canister filter and it heats the water the same way an inline water heater would? Then we could be rid of these inefficient test tubes in our tanks...

I personally have a thermo heater in my eheim filter...but its too expensive for what it is...
M