Are there any reliable heaters left?

[BigJim]

Everyone swore by Ebo Jagers, then the company was sold and the quality went to crap. Then Marineland Stealth Pros were the go-to heater, now I've seen several failures recently. What's left? I think one of my heaters is about ready to go on the fritz, so I'm looking at replacements. I'm about ready to get a titanium with an external controller.

 

[meegosh]

What about visitherms? I am using one on my 30g long with no problems. It is the 150watt model, btw. I'm not sure how their newer ones compare but I love the old ones. Mine is about 3 years old.

 

[mattrox]

I swear by fluval tronic.

 

[BigJim]

It's the Visitherms that just started going downhill.

 

[meegosh]

I thought it was Marineland's Stealth Pros that recently have been exploding?

 

[mfdrookie516]

I havent heard any problems with the visitherms, just the stealth pro's... the stealth pro replaced the visi-therm stealth, but the glass visitherm is still good quality from what i see...

 

[meegosh]

Thanks for clearing that up rookie. I am running the glass visitherm with no problems, FWIW. I never knew that the stealth pro replaced the visitherm stealth.

 

[Zer0]

RENAsmart heaters FTW. Totally.

 

[ccCapt]

IMO, there is no heater made that's reliable enough for me to trust with it's own built in thermostat. I have a Visitherm and Stealth both cranked up to about 90 and controlled by a Ranco temp controller.

 

[ryshark]

IMO, there is no heater made that's reliable enough for me to trust with it's own built in thermostat. I have a Visitherm and Stealth both cranked up to about 90 and controlled by a Ranco temp controller.

I agree with this, I wouldn't trust any heater. I use a Neptune APEX Controller the same way ccCapt uses the Ranco. Except I set my heater to about 83 and then set my controller to give power to my heater at 78-degrees tank temp and turn off power to my heater at 78.3, as soon as the controller turns power to the heater it comes right on... I highly doubt my controller would fail, but if it did I would then be relying on the heaters internal thermostat to kick off at 83-degrees. 90-degrees scares me.

 

[ryshark]

As for which, heater I have the Ebo Jager, but as mentioned above, the main component to the heater is the controller. If you want a "less expensive" controller look into a ReefKeepr Lite, I think they are around $90 and can do a whole lot more than just control your temp/heater.