Helios heaters —— suck.

[Chikpeas]

I woke up in a rage today.

I have Loved Helios because of how fast they heat the water to temp and how great they work—- until recently.

This is the second time I have woken up to my nano at 70 ferenheit.

S E V E NT Y. DEGREES. I keep it at 77.

An error message kept flashing on the unit. I had to unplug the system and restart the whole thing. Thankfully last time all my corals survived… we’ll see about a second time.


Needless to say I am not impressed. Furious actually that I dropped that much money on a failing system.

If I do a water change or add water and it’s a degree or so off the system goes haywire and also displays the error message, starts heating to the correct temp, and then switches off at some point and won’t kick back on— I have to turn that off and restart then too.

I just bought a double heating element Helios for my large tank right before these problems… so. Now I’m nervous and not sure what to do here.

Is there a more reliable system that functions similarly??

I’m not going to lie my paychecks go Directly to my ranks and animals, so losing $500 is a Huge blow.

 

[2Plus2]

If your within 5 years of purchase date reach out to them.
How they go about taking care of you should be the determining factor if they suck.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

You have to keep the probe in the same place as the heater elements, otherwise if the difference is too much the system will shut down. I have my probe in the same chamber, never had a problem since then. The reason why you "Hate" them is why they are so great. There is a temp sensor in the elements and that has to match the probe. If it doesn’t it will shut down. Better to have fish and corals that slowly cooled down than have them cooked.

 

[Dread Pirate Dave]

I think all heating solutions have their issues, regardless of the manufacturer. I have been using inkbird's controllers with preset aqueon heaters. Basically having the controller be backup for the heaters in case they stick closed. My failure rate for inkbirds is 33% (1 out of 3 have failed).

When I get my bigger tank I will be using 2 inkbirds with the preset heaters. The double double redundancy will let me sleep better at night. lol

 

[2Plus2]

You have to keep the probe in the same place as the heater elements, otherwise if the difference is too much the system will shut down. I have my probe in the same chamber, never had a problem since then. The reason why you "Hate" them is why they are so great. There is a temp sensor in the elements and that has to match the probe.

He has a 7temp drop that’s pretty severe even for not keeping the element close to the thermostat.

If i remember correctly if in sump heating element and thermostat is recommend near eachother, in a AIO have them separate in the rear chambers.

but hi @TangerineSpeedo

 

[Chikpeas]

If your within 5 years of purchase date reach out to them.
How they go about taking care of you should be the determining factor if they suck.

I’ve tried to register this product five times with 0 confirmation that it’s registered so we’ll see how this goes. It’s only a month old

 

[Chikpeas]

You have to keep the probe in the same place as the heater elements, otherwise if the difference is too much the system will shut down. I have my probe in the same chamber, never had a problem since then. The reason why you "Hate" them is why they are so great. There is a temp sensor in the elements and that has to match the probe. If it doesn’t it will shut down. Better to have fish and corals that slowly cooled down than have them cooked.

They have been, but there are also a few times where it shut off because there wasn’t enough flow into the chamber. (Adjusted my pump twice now)

 

[2Plus2]

I’ve tried to register this product five times with 0 confirmation that it’s registered so we’ll see how this goes. It’s only a month old

If your layout is as instructed, and your getting errors and there’s no factory reset on that thing send it back.
As stated above it can just be a bad unit and it can happen.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

He has a 7temp drop that’s pretty severe even for not keeping the element close to the thermostat.

If i remember correctly if in sump heating element and thermostat is recommend near eachother, in a AIO have them separate in the rear chambers.

but hi @TangerineSpeedo

Good morning right back at you!
With Helios, if the system is off between the two probes more than just a couple degrees the whole system will shut down and an alarm will go off. I believe the 7 degrees was how much the temperature fell overnight after the system went into failsafe and shut down. Unless I misinterpreted.

 

[2Plus2]

I keep the thermostat about 2inches above the heating element, incase flow fails heat will rise and the thermostat will still have an idea of the element still on and shut down instead of over heating.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

I’ve tried to register this product five times with 0 confirmation that it’s registered so we’ll see how this goes. It’s only a month old

You just have to email them a copy of your receipt. If you bought it directly from them they will have your purchase on file. I had a bad unit also, in where the audible alarm did not work, it only flashed. It was inside the cabinet. They sent another out right away.
Yes, you could also have a bad element that the sensor is bad.

 

[Chikpeas]

You just have to email them a copy of your receipt. If you bought it directly from them they will have your purchase on file. I had a bad unit also, in where the audible alarm did not work, it only flashed. It was inside the cabinet. They sent another out right away.
Yes, you could also have a bad element that the sensor is bad.

What if I purchased it through BRS?

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

What if I purchased it through BRS?

Just go to your account and click on my orders.