Re: Overheating

[ECFENCING]

Re: Overheating

Tonight I came home and noticed my temp at a balmy 85 degrees! Usually the temp varied between 79-81 with an ebo jager 250W heater on my 70 set at 75.

I did swap out the mag7 for the eheim 1260 last night and I suspect that this could be the cause but I'm dubious since the eheim draws only 5W more than the mag 7.

So I pulled out my heater and now the temp is slowly dropping. It dropped 2 degrees in a half hour. So perhaps the heater was stuck.

Time to stir up the ranco buy or an aqua controller jr group buy fast.

Also good idea to put in fans in my canopy.

 

[jhale]

fans are a good idea.
what are the lights you are using?

 

[ECFENCING]

Just normal output fluorescents. I better pick up those fans from Frank fast.

 

[jhale]

wow, they should not heat up that much.

 

[ECFENCING]

I think it's my heater. Temp is down to 82.5 now. I'm running it without the 250W ebo jager heater. I figure with the sedra 3500 and eheim 1260 that's generating enough heat. I don't plan on running it long term without a heater just long enough to get the temp back down.

I;m going to pick up two 100W ebo jager heaters and temp controller or one of those aqua jr's soon.

 

[Tonyscoots84]

good idea with the controller

 

[FRY]

thats why i use the ranco controller as a high limit set point if temp goes above 81 it turns off heater and lights till temp goes back down i allready had a heater stay on

 

[ECFENCING]

Frank: Thanks. Ranco Controller: Cant live without it.

The heater was definately stuck. I cleaned it out and placed it back in the sump and it turned on when I set it at 70 and the water was at 82.

At least the temp only went up to 85. Fish looked ok but the finger leather looked stressed and it was completely closed.

 

[Quang]

whao...glad to hear nothing died ecfence. I guess 85 is a the limit.

 

[ECFENCING]

I can't overemphasize cleaning heaters in distilled vinegar every month or so and having a temp controller. My fault for not cleaning the heater since it obviously had an internal meltdown.

Froggie: Thanks. I'm lucky nothing died.

 

[kimoyo]

I can't overemphasize cleaning heaters in distilled vinegar every month or so and having a temp controller. My fault for not cleaning the heater since it obviously had an internal meltdown.

I didn't realize you are supposed to clean them. What happens if you don't?

 

[ECFENCING]

My understanding based on a post from a nj reef central member is that if you don't clean them and you have a lot of calcium buildup it's like having a layer of insulation and the internal temp controller malfunctions. Not sure if this explanation makes sense but it does make sense to clean it to get the calcium build up off regardless.

 

[kimoyo]

That's a good point, I hadn't even thought about that.

 

[ECFENCING]

OK I'm SOL. I only have a 50w ebo jager heater that I used to heat water for water changes. My 200W is out of commission and temp is now down to 74 but staying steady which is a good thing. It was 78 when I left this morning.

THe question is what local shops in NJ can I get decent heaters and what brands would you recommend (most LFS wont carry EBO Jager). There's a petco near me but that place is worse than a LFS. Also I'm definately getting 2 heaters 150W each.

 

[ECFENCING]

Also what's the consensus on temp? I read somewhere I think in Panetta's book that 75 is ideal but nothing over 80. Man I can't wait to get those temp controllers.

 

[ECFENCING]

Lucky I found an EBO jager 250W in my "tub of fish stuff". This heater is a monster. Didn't fit in my sump so I put in the overflow to hide it.

 

[cali_reef]

Cleaning the heater or heater sensor will not help in ensuring your heater won't stick.

Most heater use a bi-metal temperature sensing contact and they tend to go bad after few thousand cycles. External temp controller like Ranco or Medusa is the only way to be sure.

I keep my tanks at 78-79 in the winter and 82-83 in the summer.

 

[ECFENCING]

Pierce

Thanks. What's strange is that ebo jager 200W heater I had was only 8 months old. There is no doubt the temp controller is the only way to go.

Do you use any other controllers like a neptune? I always thought that having for example a separate ph controller and temp controller and your lights on timers was the way to go instead of getting an all in one unit. The logic is that if your neptune goes then you are out of luck and have to get the whole unit repaired and it may not be repairable. With seperate controllers you are creating in effect a parallel configuration instead of a series configuration.

 

[cali_reef]

I have two neptune AC II in my system, they are more for PH, temp, and ORP monitoring. I have not use them to control anything since I setup the current system, I had built a power panel with 16 controlled outlets for my old system and everything was running off the AC II.

X-10 technology is not as reliable as hardwired Ranco, I always have a few spare Ranco and intermatic timers available for redundancy.