Multiple smaller heaters (watts) are better than one larger one! Do you agree?

[Bruce60]

Where do you gat an alarm? Is it an app that you can add to your cell phone?

I use the alarm feature of my Apex. It will text and email when a parameter, such as temp, is out of a range I set. But I believe there are free standing temp monitors that will do the same thing.

 

[czynot]

Got 1000.00 of fish in qt. Woke up in 2nd day and found all fish cooked alive!

 

[Freenow54]

Got 1000.00 of fish in qt. Woke up in 2nd day and found all fish cooked alive!

That is not pleasant. Same for me not $$$ but my 10 cichlids were tank bred . Then just a little while ago lost the rest to Malawi bloat very frustrating. I am going to follow advice from Bulk Reef Supply, and just change them out every year. Now that I know about an alarm, will invest in three of those as well

 

[Freenow54]

I use the alarm feature of my Apex. It will text and email when a parameter, such as temp, is out of a range I set. But I believe there are free standing temp monitors that will do the same thing.

Thank you for the reply

 

[boacvh]

This question made me curious... @Hedgedrew how do you maintain temp on yours?

 

[Fredinva]

To add further to the discussion. I Still believe two is redundancy. IF, you have some type alarm, you will know something is awry whether you have ONE or TWO HEATERS. If no alarm, you have two chances of possibly cooking your fish.
And I cant figure out how two heaters would work at all if both are powered. Heater one will heat the tank, and if you have good circulation, heater 2 may never even come on. OR VICE VERSA!

 

[Hyde2406]

Doesn't matter how many heaters you have when I accidentally plug it into a regular outlet not the hygger controller and cook my tank to 90 degrees..... Got excited cleaning and installing new uv light and biopellets and plugged it in wrong..... Dead Randall's Assessor but marine beta and cleaner wrasse seem to be ok. Most coal seem to be upset but no deaths except for one mushroom but my Coral are all softies: zoas leathers mushrooms and gorgonians etc only time will tell. Got the temp down in the 80s pretty quickly so hopefully I can save most of it. I added a bunch of rock from my son's tank and moved stuff around so it looks like it's all gone but it's just under and around etc on the rocks all that was done yesterday before I realized the temp issue. User error is the worst!

 

[Shooter6]

Yes multiple are better in my opinion. The reasons are as follows.
Multiple smaller ones are less likely to fail at the same time so if sized properly, less likely to cook the tank.

Also if 1 fails in the off position, the loss of heat will be slower allowing a larger widow to catch and fix the issue.

I personally heat and cool my fishroom with a minisplit and have the aquarium heater as backup, set a 2 degrees lower then my minisplit maintains air temp. This keeps my reef steady at 80 degrees.

 

[neo1738]

I use an inkbird so if it fails "on" the outlet will shut off and it can't cook the tank. I also use a 600w as primary and have a 300w backup as well in my return. 100g DT w 30g in sump.

 

[MnFish1]

I have 2 - and a controller. if the temp gets too high both shut off. If one fails 1) I'll get an alert and 2) as others have said - the cooling of the water will be slower.

 

[reefsaver]

I use 3 because I had to get another one after adding my sump but I really want to get an Inkbird Temp Controller just to add an extra layer of redundancy so they shut off if one fails and the tank won't cook off.

 

[Timfish]

Redundancy when a piece of equipment fails is always good.