Do you use Titanium heater

[samksy]

Just wondering if you guys use titanium heater? and if so which one is good. I am planning to get one to heat up water for water change since they heat up water 10x faster. I had one in the past but there were minor rust on both ends, are there better one out there that doesn't. thanks,

-Sam

 

[thirty6]

I have two. One is in my qt and the other to heater water for waterchange. I dont know the name off top of my head ill take a look tonight when i get home

 

[tomtoothdoc]

i switched from eheim jager to these for about 2 years now. have the 300 watts and 100 watts models. i really like them. separate temperature sensor can be suction cupped away from the heating tube(even though the sensor cord is only about a foot long, still better than a built-in one.);digital controller out of the water; can see the current temp; can see when the power is on and when heater is on with the separate red/green leds. accurate to about 1-2 degrees. so far so good. no rust that i can see yet.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/finnex-hmo-heater-w-digital-led-controller.html

 

[Arati]

Tom beat me to it

If you have a controller, I would ay use a finnex deluxe th series heater. imo that is the best heater.

if you don't use a controller then finnex HMO w/digital led controller.

 

[d5332]

Two things:

to the OP, please try to go with titanium, glass can break, not often but when it does, it has the potential for bad things to occur.

to Arati, controller you mean like Apex? so I would only have to buy the titanium heater element without the heater controller?

Tom beat me to it

If you have a controller, I would ay use a finnex deluxe th series heater. imo that is the best heater.

if you don't use a controller then finnex HMO w/digital led controller.

 

[tomtoothdoc]

finnex makes just the titanium tube that can be used with any controller that has a temperature sensor ( i don't know of any controller that don't use a temp sensor).
i run the hmo series(with the digital controllers) with my rkl in the display and with a ranco temperature controller along with my chiller in the sump...redundancy is a must with heaters, imo.
the mixed salt water brutes containers have the heaters just with the included controllers.

 

[masterswimmer]

I've had so many returns of the Finnex heaters I no longer even carry them. I'm glad to hear you're having success with them.

My choice for a titanium heater is the Via Aqua with LCD readout.

Russ

 

[lfsmarineguy]

JBJ with the temp controller for smaller builds. Has a separate and long temp probe so you can get some distance between the heater and probe. Or just the regular heater if you have a controller already.

 

[Imbarrie]

I had a Finnex heater pop on me.
Heard a loud pop from my sump and saw the black endcap blown up like a balloon.
Smelled a burnt electrical smell that went away when I removed the heater.
I will never trust this again even if they replaced it under warranty.

I went back to my ehiem and that is that.
The Finnex and one other brand I cannot remember were the only heaters I have ever had issues with.

 

[masterswimmer]

I had a Finnex heater pop on me.
Heard a loud pop from my sump and saw the black endcap blown up like a balloon.
Smelled a burnt electrical smell that went away when I removed the heater.
I will never trust this again even if they replaced it under warranty.

I went back to my ehiem and that is that.
The Finnex and one other brand I cannot remember were the only heaters I have ever had issues with.

I'm going to offer a guess that the other brand was Won Bros.

Russ

FYI, that scenario of the exploding Finnex was only one of the problems I had with Finnex, albeit a major one.

 

[samksy]

Thank you guys for all your valueable inputs. I think I will stay with a eheim glass heater for now. It seems the chance for a ehiem heater to shatter/malfunction is much lower than a malfunction titanium heaters.

I was using a won's brother titanium heater several years ago, the end cap was rusting away. If you have one and has a end cap, just remove and check for rust once in a while.

 

[SanmanReefer]

I've had so many returns of the Finnex heaters I no longer even carry them. I'm glad to hear you're having success with them.

My choice for a titanium heater is the Via Aqua with LCD readout.

Russ

+1 on the Via Aqua. I own one and it is excellent.

 

[NYreefNoob]

ive been using a gllass heater for four years with no issues, if your not banging stuff around it isnt a issue

 

[lfsmarineguy]

If you're staying with glass I would say Eheim is by far the best. Never seen any issues that were related to the actual heater and not user error. They're just big whereas the titaniums are usually much smaller for the wattage. Won Brothers just makes garbage everything.

 

[SanmanReefer]

ive been using a gllass heater for four years with no issues, if your not banging stuff around it isnt a issue

I had a Finnex blow up on my while servicing my 46 gallon bow a few years ago. It just exploded exactly when I took both my hands out of the sump, thank God. Who knows what would've happened, I guess electrocution would be the worst case scenario. I switched to titanium since then.

 

[BaaMNYC]

JBJ with the temp controller for smaller builds. Has a separate and long temp probe so you can get some distance between the heater and probe. Or just the regular heater if you have a controller already.

i definitely do not recommend a jbj. ive read horrible reviews about them after i had a jbj and it failed. The controller sucked. connections were bad always had temperature error messages. the heater component broke after only 1.5 years. I had an 800W (rated well over my tank size) cost me around $150.00 waste of money.

i currently have one eheim jager & a via aqua titanium in my sump both hooked up to my RKL as back up in case it gets stuck on. I like both of them and have heard from other reefers how great they both are

learned the hard way to have more than one in my DT. Followed the advice to have redundancy in case it fails on to put it on a controller.

 

[dj ze]

i used to run 3 500wt titanium heaters with a ranco controller 2 years ago the controller malfunctioned & it nearly cooked my tank the titanium heaters heat the water faster but also if there's a malfunction it might be to late before you can catch it .i now run 5 300wt eheims set 2 degrees above my controller if the controller goes the eheims will only go to the set temperature

 

[samksy]

wow, so much negative experience. I'm staying with my 4 eheim heaters.

 

[MIKE NY]

Thank you guys for all your valueable inputs. I think I will stay with a eheim glass heater for now. It seems the chance for a ehiem heater to shatter/malfunction is much lower than a malfunction titanium heaters.

x2...over the years I had two titaniums literally explode their tops off spewing black crap all over and will never use them again.