AQUARIUM HEATER LIFE EXPECTANCY

[DaveSamsell]

Had an Aqueon 50 watt heater go out yesterday for me.  It did last about 12 months of good use though.  My others are still working fine.  

One thing I noticed was that this particular heater was a bit further away from my HOB filter flow, than my other set-ups.  Maybe a coincidence, maybe not, in contributing to the burn out.

How long are your heaters lasting, on average?

 

[Guppy Guru]

I’ve had some run for a week and others I’ve gotten second hand that are about 5 years old I think it depends on the on/off cycle how many times they are switching temp etc.

I have had some good luck with the Eheim of course, and the others are cheaper, but work well. I think Cory has a good video/stream on heaters and I did run mostly all 50-100 w cause of that video 

[AndyG]

I’ve used aqueon pros almost exclusively for years. I’ve never had a problem with my current heater, it’s been running like 3 years straight. 

[Ruud]

12 months seems to be a very low lifespan to me for an aquarium heater. I am not familiar with the Aqueon name and whether it is known as a quality brand in US. Here in Europe I always used Eheim heaters and never had a failure with one of them as far as I can remember. 

In what size tank and what temp did you run the 50w? I guess if it had to work at 100% to keep up, it might have reached end of life sooner than a 100w that maybe uses 70% of it capacity to reach and maintain the temperature?

 

[Fishoutawater]

ive had just about every brand over the years and find that they are all about the same they can last 5 minutes or ten years. i run temp controllers on most of my tanks  and that seems to keep them going longer setting them so that the actual heater thermostat never actually gets used. 

[Daniel]

2 minutes ago, Fishoutawater said:

ive had just about every brand over the years and find that they are all about the same they can last 5 minutes or ten years. i run temp controllers on most of my tanks  and that seems to keep them going longer setting them so that the actual heater thermostat never actually gets used. 

I think @Fishoutawater has identified the weak point in aquarium heaters. It is the bi-metal thermostat (this is the least expensive form of thermostatic control and therefore the most popular). Heater failures usually happen when the electrical contacts actuated by the bi-metal elements fuse after a certain number of on/off cycles.

So, if your heater goes on and off all the time you will likely experience a significantly shorter lifetime. It is one reason to choose heater with 'lesser' wattage than the traditional recommendation. Why? Because then the heater will spend much more time just being on instead of turning on and off constantly.

I totally get the logic @Ruud suggest about heater wattage and if it were the heating element failing then a bigger heater would be the way to go.

 

[DaveSamsell]

47 minutes ago, Ruud said:

12 months seems to be a very low lifespan to me for an aquarium heater. I am not familiar with the Aqueon name and whether it is known as a quality brand in US. Here in Europe I always used Eheim heaters and never had a failure with one of them as far as I can remember. 

In what size tank and what temp did you run the 50w? I guess if it had to work at 100% to keep up, it might have reached end of life sooner than a 100w that maybe uses 70% of it capacity to reach and maintain the temperature?

Thanks for the input.  👍

BTW, It is a 78 deg Fahrenheit , preset heater.  Not an expensive item, but it did seem to fail, prematurely.

It was in a 10 gallon & the room temp was around 72 deg, so the heater's duty cycle was of average duration & nothing excessive.  

 

 

[Ruud]

Doesnt seem to be excessive indeed @DaveSamsell, even more for a 10 gallon. Looks like a case of just bad luck or bad quality. 

[LadyoftheLake]

I thought larger heaters went through fewer cycles?

[DaveSamsell]

10 minutes ago, LadyoftheLake said:

I thought larger heaters went through fewer cycles?

I am finding out that a couple of smaller heaters, placed throughout the tank, heats everything more evenly than one big heater, IME.

 

[Daniel]

On 10/29/2020 at 3:18 PM, LadyoftheLake said:

I thought larger heaters went through fewer cycles?

In the dirted tank vs. EcoComplete vs. Normal aquarium gravel project I am using 3 small Aqueon heaters. Based on the recommendations of the heater packaging, presumably I would want 2, 100 watt heater for each aquarium.

My central heating is setting to 69 °F and my room temperature (at least in the morning) is 69.8 °F

The theory I am using is this: since the 10 cent bi-metal thermostat is the weakest link in my heater, the least number of times the heater has to go on and off will provide the least chance of the thermostat fusing and failing in the on position. I have no idea if this is true. I could have this completely backwards and if this is true, what @LadyoftheLake suggest above would be a better way to go.

What I installed is an Aqueon 50 watt heater in each aquarium. Each heater is set to 80 °F. All the heaters are plugged into and controlled by a Neptune Apex controller that turns each heater on if the temperature falls below 77 °F and turns each heater off if the temperature rises above 78 °F.

This is the result so far for the 3 tanks

The temperatures have never fallen below 74 °F and never reached 78 °F. Because they are undersized, from the moment I plugged them in, they have never turned off even once. It takes everything thing they have trying to reach 78 °F.

The tanks are coolest in the morning and warmest in the evening all within a comfortable acceptable range averaging about 76 °F. I don't know whether I am frying these heaters by making them run constantly or extending their lives by never using their thermostats.

 

[Andy's Fish Den]

I was recently listening to a podcast, not @Randy one, another aquarium one, and they had a guy from Cobalt on talking about heaters. Now, I'm trying to recall exactly but my memory sometimes isn't what it should be. He said the bi-metallic thermostats are the ones that fail the most, and to get a heater with an electronic thermostat because it has less parts to fail, and most likely won't fail on, which the bi-metal ones always do because the two metal pieces weld themselves together which is what then makes the heater turn on.