Heaters....suggestion please...

[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