Inkbird/heater Question

[dmurray407]

I use an Inkbird to manage the two heaters in my aquarium. I was just gone for 3 days and read on FB that the power was out for about 15 minutes the morning after I left. When I got home today, my thermometer read 63 degrees and the Inkbird was flashing E4. I’m assuming it never came back on after the power outage so the heaters didn’t come back on either. Luckily, my fish are all OK and the temp is very slowly coming up. I have a back up plan in case my power goes out for an extended period of time when I’m home-(during the cold MN winter is my big concern)  I guess I never thought about it happening like this. One of the heaters is a Coop heater with backup-but I don’t think the Inkbird let it do its job. I guess I will take the Coop heater off the Inkbird and keep it seperate so this doesn’t happen again. Any thoughts? I honestly thought the Inkbird would just come back on when the power came back up. 

[Dutchaj]

My inkbird also hasn’t had any issues with power outages 

[HelplessNewbie]

I also have an ACO heater controlled by Inkbird. The Inkbird is set 1 deg higher than my Inkbird. The undersized 2nd heater is independent, and set 1 deg lower than the inkbird. Both setups always come back after power is restored, however, both are plugged into the surge only ports of my UPS.

[_Eric_]

I haven’t ever had an issue with my ink birds after a power outage.  What type do you have? 

[Guppysnail]

I use 9 inkbirds and those tanks all have coop heaters. They all resume normal function after power outages. I do have them all connected to surge protectors though. 

[dmurray407]

On 10/8/2023 at 2:41 AM, _Eric_ said:

I haven’t ever had an issue with my ink birds after a power outage.  What type do you have? 

Mine are the ITC306A model. It switched off again last night (no power problems) so there might be something wrong with it. I’m going to move the temp probs around a bit today, but if it alarms again, I’ll change it out. I moved the Coop heater to a regular outlet. 

[_Eric_]

On 10/8/2023 at 9:08 AM, dmurray407 said:

Mine are the ITC306A model. It switched off again last night (no power problems) so there might be something wrong with it. I’m going to move the temp probs around a bit today, but if it alarms again, I’ll change it out. I moved the Coop heater to a regular outlet. 

do you have both probes close to each other?  They should be as close as you make them.  If you do, sounds like you have a faulty temp probe.  

[MattyM]

Do you use the app? I also have the wifi one and it will send alerts to my phone when such things happen. The only time I've gotten that error is when the heaters have been on longer than the max length of time I have set for them to be on. From the phone I can just turn the inkbird off and on again and it will retain its settings and start heating again.

As _Eric_ said if the probes are not next to each other it could cause problems like this. The directions say to keep them close as a redundancy feature, so if one probe goes out the other sill works. They are not meant to take readings from different parts of the tank - that will only mess them up, esp if you have a larger tank. 

[dmurray407]

On 10/8/2023 at 11:54 AM, MattyM said:

As _Eric_ said if the probes are not next to each other it could cause problems like this. The directions say to keep them close as a redundancy feature,

Directions.....ha!  The probes were about 6 inches apart. I've never had any problems before (they's been that way for at least a year) Now the suction cups are touching each other so hopefully that's the problem. You all are the best!

[_Eric_]

On 10/8/2023 at 12:13 PM, dmurray407 said:

Directions.....ha!  The probes were about 6 inches apart. I've never had any problems before (they's been that way for at least a year) Now the suction cups are touching each other so hopefully that's the problem. You all are the best!

I am not sure 6 inches would be enough to cause an issue so I’d keep an eye on it still.  May have a bad sensor.