Arcticgypsy Posted July 26 Share Posted July 26 After almost 8 years running my 29g tank, I'm going to be setting up my 2nd tank. A 50g. Deciding on the heater setup, and looking to see what everyone is using for tanks in 50-55g range. Planning 2x 150w heaters, running on a controller. Not sure on what controller or heater to get. I don't want to spend a fortune on them. I'm on my 2nd eheim jager on the 29g. The 1st one failed after 3 years, so not sure if I will go with it again. I know there are a lot of other "China" branded heaters, and others like Nicrew / hygger, but not sure how reliable they would be. for something that could potentially harm your fish, rather go with something well known. Heaters Considering Eheim Jager 200W or 250w x1 Fluval E 200 x1 Fluval T 200 Or Fluval M 100- x2 Eheim Jager 100 x2 Fluval T100 x2 Controller have been looking at (not sure on this) Inkbird ITC-306T Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamS Posted July 26 Share Posted July 26 On all my tanks I have an inkbird 306 and one or more hygger 100 watt (998) heaters. Since there has been more exposure around how many issues most heaters have I figured I’d put in a controller and then go with a cheap heater that I can replace every few years. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HelplessNewbie Posted July 26 Share Posted July 26 I also use Inkbird, the 308 model, although I think I could have gotten away with no heater since it is warm here in Georgia. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quikv6 Posted July 26 Share Posted July 26 (edited) Arcticgypsy, I'll get to brands in a second, but I want to suggest going with a lower overall wattage, unless your tank is in a very cold room (ie: garage/unheated basement), or you can only do water changes with cold water. I use 2 - 100 watt heaters in my 180 gallon, and it does more than fine. In fact, I set one a few degrees lower, just in case the primary fails. As a result, it never turns on. So in reality, my 180 is heated solely by a single 100 watt heater. Room temp is around 66, and the temp of the tank is 77. The work of maintaining heat in a tank is different than actually heating a tank up to temperature. I use inkbirds in 3 of my tanks. They are the simplest model, and are great. I wouldn't use a heater without one. Unlike most, though, I let the heaters' internal thermostat do the work. The inkbirds are only there to cut power if a heater sticks on. I don't let the inkbird govern the temp...and leave that to the heaters themselves. As for brands...ehhh....I am not too picky. I use the Co-ops heaters, though they are far from my favorite. I don't believe they are sold anymore, so I guess that isn't an option. My vote would've been for the older Aqueon Pro heaters with the black body, light on the body, and blue knob. They were great for me, but they changed the manufacturer, and I did not like the newer style at all. So, in short....consider less wattage, and definitely get an Inkbird! Just my .02 Edited July 26 by quikv6 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcticgypsy Posted July 27 Author Share Posted July 27 On 7/26/2024 at 7:30 PM, quikv6 said: I use 2 - 100 watt heaters in my 180 gallon, and it does more than fine. In fact, I set one a few degrees lower, just in case the primary fails. As a result, it never turns on. So in reality, my 180 is heated solely by a single 100 watt heater. Room temp is around 66, and the temp of the tank is 77. The work of maintaining heat in a tank is different than actually heating a tank up to temperature. I use inkbirds in 3 of my tanks. They are the simplest model, and are great. I wouldn't use a heater without one. Was thinking 2x 100w for the 50g, think I will go that way. I already have a fluval M 100w kicking around so just need to buy the second. prob go with an eheim. (will get whatever I can find on sale lol) Glad to hear the Inkbirds are working well. Price wise not too bad. bit more total than I wanted to spend on the heating system. Then again look at how much we spend on plants / fish. Thanks again all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepere Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 I would second the consideration of lower wattage. I manage my 29 gallon tanks with a single 50 watt. When I get my 75, I am planning on 2, 50 watt heaters controlled by an Inkbird. I opt to use my Inkbird as the controller and the heaters thermostat as the failsafe setting temp on those a degree above the Inkbirds settings… I set the Inkbird for a 2 degree differential, meaning the controller keeps the heaters on until set point is met and then cuts power to the heater. This means the cord carrying power to the heater is only energized when the heater is producing heat. With the 2 degree differential the heater does not come on again until the tank has dropped 2 degrees. This reduces the number of heating cycles per day, but increases the run time of each cycle. Aqqa sells a heater similar to the one the co op sold and is available on Amazon.com. I like it as it can mount low in the tank. This allows me to do a 50% water change without the heater being exposed to air. I also like the digital temp control that you set outside of the tank. Much nicer than twisting a knob on a mechanical thermostat where the numbers the pointer points to bears little relation to the actual set temp… 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMC Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 I have used both Inkbird and BN-LINK brand controllers. They both have worked great for 7 and 4 years respectively. I second using a small wattage per gallon. I use a 50 watt heater in 10 gallon aquariums in my garage (the garage gets down into the low 50s during the winter). Meaning with a polycarbonate twin walled DIY lid covering 80-90% of the top and only air powered filters, I have found that 5 watts per gallon can handle a 20 degree difference between the room and water temperature. I also think that letting your fish have some seasonal change (a few degrees cooler for a few months of the year) seems to help our fish live longer and have more babies in the summer season. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcticgypsy Posted July 27 Author Share Posted July 27 (edited) On 7/26/2024 at 8:38 PM, Pepere said: … I set the Inkbird for a 2 degree differential, meaning the controller keeps the heaters on until set point is met and then cuts power to the heater. This means the cord carrying power to the heater is only energized when the heater is producing heat. With the 2 degree differential the heater does not come on again until the tank has dropped 2 degrees. This reduces the number of heating cycles per day, but increases the run time of each cycle. … That's super helpful. Opting for this one. Like that it has 2 probes. Also Figure having wifi being able to deal with it via the phone will be great...you know for those days I'm out and hubby's "why is this thing beeping at me?" Trust me he will. Whenever the water drops too low on my tidal filters I get "your filter is gurgling at me again, Should I unplug that thing?" LoL🥴 He likes my fish just not into the hobby The inkbird thinking of now https://a.co/d/7dTVze0 Edited July 27 by Arcticgypsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepere Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 On 7/27/2024 at 4:31 AM, Arcticgypsy said: Like that it has 2 probes. No, the Inkbird I use has 1 temp probe in the tank, but you can plug 2 heaters into it. I almost think there is an inkbird with 2 temp probes. I think it uses the average of the two temps, but not sure. I have no experience with the wifi models myself… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quikv6 Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 There is an inkbird w/2 probes and wifi. I have a friend who had one and hated it. There were connectivity issues all the time. He switched out to the simple single probe non-wifi version, and loves that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcticgypsy Posted July 28 Author Share Posted July 28 Arrived today. will pick up a heater locally. Cheaper than Amazon. Read good things on this one and caught it on sale. If it doesn't work as expected, will drop down to the basic single probe one without wifi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattP Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 (edited) I I have three of those inkbird ITC 308. I like inline heaters if I can incorporate them but they require some sort of canister filter. I have two of those. One is an old 300w hydor inline heater which has worked reliably for years. The other inline heater is an Amazon special called Datoo EH-300. It's a Chinese sort of no-name brand which likely is available though various branding. That one has lcd display readout. Both of those get along fine with my inkbirds and dont seem to quit working. I believe the inline heater is just a robust design. The inkbirds are nice because I can set the temp lower that the lowest default settings of the heaters themselves which is 68f. I keep my goldfish in an unheated room and set those inkbirds as low as 47f to put those fish in torpor during our frigid north east winters. Those inkbirds also work great for cooling. I use one to control a window mount air conditioner with analog controls for cooling in summer.. the inkbird controlled AC keeps the room and all the tanks in there no hotter than 74f in summer. I used to let them get crazy warm (85+f) but I didn't think it was great for the fish or the room. It reduced evaporation too. The other heater I've had good luck with is the topfin H series submerged filters. They are not the topfin CH series. Those ones are junk. The H series heaters are at petsmart. Select the appropriate wattage. They have Grey colored rubber caps and internal color. These just seem to last even after I've noticed a little moisture ingress inside the glass tube.. these topfin H series heaters have outlasted many other glass tube submerged type heaters I've tried so I've kept going to those for tanks that don't have canisters. All my heaters get taken out of service during the summer months when the ambient temp alone keeps my tanks warm enough. This probably helps them last longer too. Edited July 30 by MattP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwcarlson Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 The only time I have ever been disappointed with an InkBird product is when it has had WiFi (it was a BBQ thermometer). Otherwise, they have been fantastic. I probably own close to 20 of their heat controllers. They're great. Regarding what size heaters and what kind of heaters to use. With a heat controller, I buy whatever random alphabet soup heater is least expensive on Amazon. They have lasted longer than Eheim heaters and are smaller footprint. That said, the wattage isn't always accurate (for example a 300W and 500W heater are probably the same heater and they're actually around 250W). But the heater is built better than others (IMO). It also matters what fish you're going to keep. If you're keeping discus or rams... you're going to have to keep that thing HOT, so you want the wattage to do it. And you're highly unlikely to overheat the tank considering you have a quality heat controller, as long as you keep the probe in the water. Fair warning: the InkBird suction cups kind of stink. Consider an alternative means of securing the probe. I have had good luck with the suction cups putting them on my bare bottom tanks (on the bottom). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcticgypsy Posted August 3 Author Share Posted August 3 On 7/30/2024 at 12:38 AM, MattP said: All my heaters get taken out of service during the summer months when the ambient temp alone keeps my tanks warm enough. This probably helps them last longer too. I've thought of doing that. We run a window A/C unit in our apt. bedroom, and use fans to move the cool air through the rest of the place. works well. Even on days when temps are over 40C (104F), the livingroom is around 80F. But we do get nights that drop down to 55F to 60F those nights, I open the windows wide to get fresh air flowing and cool down the rooms. The heater will kick on during those nights. Will just watch for a sale on something 100W, now that I have the controller, not so worried about failure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattP Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 (edited) "But we do get nights that drop down to 55F to 60F those nights, I open the windows wide to get fresh air flowing and cool down the rooms. The heater will kick on during those nights. " wow sounds like some pretty big temperature swing. I don't worry a ton about temperatures becusse I primairly have goldfish but two of my other tanks have tropicals. I try not to let their tanks get below 60f. Again that's nice thing about the inkbirds. They are able to set the temp of the heater to 60f. Edited August 3 by MattP 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcticgypsy Posted August 3 Author Share Posted August 3 On 8/3/2024 at 12:12 AM, MattP said: wow sounds like some pretty big temperature swing. I don't worry a ton about temperatures becusse I primairly have goldfish but two of my other tanks have tropicals. I try not to let their tanks get below 60f. Again that's nice thing about the inkbirds. They are able to set the temp of the heater to 60f. Yeah it's crazy sometimes. June / July the temps in general are hot / humid and windows are closed for the most part and the room temp sits around 75F. May, Aug we get big swings and lots of storms. was 95F and humid in the day, right now, 1am, it's still 84F, tomorrow night it's going down to 59F.....Wish I could find a spot that stayed 65F to 70F all the time lol 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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