Well, the water in my HQI lit frag tank has been feeling a bit warm the past couple weeks, so i dropped a thermometer in it last night and WOW. It was 86 F. I had two very old heaters in the sump. It seems the 100W 9 year old heater was stuck on and keeping the 80 gallons of tank water a bit warm. I couldnt tell it was on, as a lot of calcium and stuff covered the glass tube, blocking the little red light. I have had an outbreak of string algae in the tank last couple weeks. I wonder if that was from the high temperature? all the frags seem just fine and happy, didnt lose color or anything which is why i didnt notice the temp. and the Derasa clam never showed any stress. So i just took both heaters out for the summer. it cooled down to 77.4 by this morning and since the lights went on, has only risen to 79.5. the house temp is 78 today. got the AC set a little high for the heat wave. so back to normal conditions. good example of why two smaller heaters is better than one big one when gremlins strike.
Now i have to finish cleaning algae off the tank, and replace the 2 inches of sand on bottom with a plenum DSB. I think that will end the algae problem. I’ve never had luck with anything but a plenum. All other sand bed types slime up on me. I don’t know why?
ken, i had a heater freeze on high in my reservoir, right before the stealth recall. temp went to over 90.
bought 2 via aqua titanium probed heaters. they are spot on and not expensive
I had a problem with a heater that was a few years old. noticed my tank was always around 84 so i pulled the heater and it was stil warm so it is now out of the system and I have my stable temp never over 80.
Mine was one of these old Hagen Mini heaters. they used to be like $13.00 at TFP 8 or 9 years ago. but they sold out. i dont think they make them anymore. this must be old stock.
The heater actually lasted a very long time. maybe 9 years. always worked great till now. so one 100 watt heater could only bump it up to 86, and no harm done. except the algae. if it had been a 200 or 300 W, the tank would have been toast. well with no heater today, the tank is only up to 81.5 now, in a warm house with the HQIs on all day. They will go off in an hour. the other tanks in the room are about the same. 81-82, so time to lower the AC temp a little. they cool down to 77 over night. thats my usual summer range every day. 77 to 82. i will remove the heaters from the other tanks too. while im at it.
Ken, thats good you caught it. I guess you can’t complain about 9 yo heater going bad. I wander how this new titanium heaters will hold up, time will tell. For now you can joint my ranks of heater less tanks, ::, nice to have you.
Wow Ken - glad you didn’t lose anything. That’s one of the reasons I am a big proponent of controllers. If my heater sticks on my controller will shut the outlet off at 82. If the tank gets to 84.5 it will also shut my MH lights off.
But you’re right - this is just another example of why it’s better to run several small heaters than 1 big one.
It seems corals can handle some warmer temps than we normally consider. that’s good. but what happens if your controller gets scrambled by a power surge? Soup?
[quote=“kaptken, post:9, topic:4327”]
It seems corals can handle some warmer temps than we normally consider. that’s good. but what happens if your controller gets scrambled by a power surge? Soup? [/quote]
You get a text and e-mail to your i-phone saying “power failure”, then you drop everything you doing, go home and fix it. ::
Wait a minute, Ken don’t have phone, controller and already home, so I gess He will never know if heater failed ::
Sorry Ken, couldn’t help my self. :BEER
You know Ken there’s a lot to be said about keeping life simple. Sometimes I think life would be easier without all of the distractions we fill our daily lives with. Sorry don’t mean to get philosophical but the mood just hit me.
[quote=“kaptken, post:9, topic:4327”]
It seems corals can handle some warmer temps than we normally consider. that’s good. but what happens if your controller gets scrambled by a power surge? Soup? [/quote]
You get a text and e-mail to your i-phone saying “power failure”, then you drop everything you doing, go home and fix it. ::[/quote]
Some of us don’t have a job where we can drop everything and run to our tanks.
I’ll take reliable over bells and whistles any day.
[quote=“kaptken, post:9, topic:4327”]
It seems corals can handle some warmer temps than we normally consider. that’s good. but what happens if your controller gets scrambled by a power surge? Soup? [/quote]
You get a text and e-mail to your i-phone saying “power failure”, then you drop everything you doing, go home and fix it. ::[/quote]
Some of us don’t have a job where we can drop everything and run to our tanks.
I’ll take reliable over bells and whistles any day.[/quote]
it was a joke, and how is it reliable when someone home and still didn’t know when heater fails???
IDK? I sit like 3 feet from the tank, all day playing on the puter. everything looked fine, except the string algae bloom, but i chalked that up to the dirty sand bed im going to replace. I didn’t see any steam rising off the water.
[quote=“kaptken, post:9, topic:4327”]
but what happens if your controller gets scrambled by a power surge? Soup? [/quote]
If you don’t know what you are doing or have a poorly made controller then you can get soup. Try to play the what if game with me and my tanks though. “What if this wire were to be cut”, “what if this part were to die”. “What if this sensor got nocked out of the water.” My system will survive and all the animals would be fine.
Well made controllers have a fallback state so that if the outlets your equipment is plugged into loses communication with the “brain” of the controller the equipment will be on or off depending on what you have set. My heater is set to fall back in off so they won’t stay on constantly if my controller dies and my circulation pumps continue to do their normal thing.
[quote=“kaptken, post:9, topic:4327”]
but what happens if your controller gets scrambled by a power surge? Soup? [/quote]
If you don’t know what you are doing or have a poorly made controller then you can get soup. Try to play the what if game with me and my tanks though. “What if this wire were to be cut”, “what if this part were to die”. “What if this sensor got nocked out of the water.” My system will survive and all the animals would be fine.
Well made controllers have a fallback state so that if the outlets your equipment is plugged into loses communication with the “brain” of the controller the equipment will be on or off depending on what you have set. My heater is set to fall back in off so they won’t stay on constantly if my controller dies and my circulation pumps continue to do their normal thing. [/quote]
+1
That would be setting thing up with possible failures in mind. so it goes to safe mode. I guess that takes an understanding of how the controller works internally, and how you set the equipment it controls. if you dont do that, disaster is possible.
but mine was a simple stuck old heater. the safety mode was, it wasnt big enough to cook the tank by itself.
:, nice to have you.