Question about titanium heaters in sumps/'refugiums

Jason R

Jason R

New member
I have a 96 Gallon tank and a E-Shopps 200 Refugium. Since I have 120+ gallons in my system I picked up a 300W Via-Aqua titanium heater and put it in the first chamber. The heat was going higher than it should have which made me wonder if the standard "recommendations" are wrong when the heater is in a smaller chamber of a larger system. Any thoughts?
 
Do you have the heater attached to a controller? It might be that the heater just runs hotter that the temp you selected. I run a heater in my overflow (built in) and the temp stays at a pretty constant 78. The heater is connected to a JBJ controller.
 
Ive had the same problem with my old titaniums running hotter than the set temp. Finnex and Via Aqua. What I ended up doing is setting up my target temp on my APEX while setting the temp on the heaters controller to a few degrees higher than the APEX. Worked like a charm.
 
Also be careful where you put your probe I try to keep it in the same chamber as the heater. I once didn't realize I had my probe in the next chamber Refugium. I turn my pumps off and the temp keep going up and up before I knew it my first chamber was over 100 degrees. The probe was in the refugium chamber and since no water was moving the first chamber was crazy hot. I didn't realize it until the probe readings came over on my Apex the second chamber got hot quick, this happened about a month ago in my 60G SPS tank. Luckily I didn't lose anything but my SPS did brown out for a few weeks but are making a come back which is a good sign.
 
Fish_wiz2 said:
Ive had the same problem with my old titaniums running hotter than the set temp. Finnex and Via Aqua. What I ended up doing is setting up my target temp on my APEX while setting the temp on the heaters controller to a few degrees higher than the APEX. Worked like a charm.
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Could you give more detail on this? What were the on and off settings set to on the Apex?

One thing I have heard of with Apex and titanium heaters is if that you can get in to trouble if the on and off temps are too close together. What can end up happening is that they don't actually cool down before they get turned back on so in effect they effectively never get turned off at all. The heat just builds.
 
It's been awhile since I've had my APEX so I don't remember my exact temps. I just remember having the same problem and using what I said to solve it.
 
OK. I found the real cause of the problem. Outlet 1 on my EB8 doesn't actually turn off even when it says it is off. I put my Radion on there to see if somehow a 300W heater wasn't a sufficient draw to trip the TRIAC switch. It didn't turn off either. My buddy who just picked up a new Apex had the same issue with Outlet 1. I just moved my BioChurn reactor over to outlet 1 since I never turn it off anyway. Now I am getting better results.
 
Ahhh thats an interesting call. Is your unit still under warranty? I would get it fixed if possible, for how much theyre worth, i would like all outlets running. Ive had my APEX services for the variable speed ports.
 
Be careful with titanium heaters that doesn't have its own controller. You should always have 2 controllers backing each other up, just incase 1 fails. A faulty JBJ controller caused my last crash.
Now my heating system is a heater with a built in controller and another controller as a backup.


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Fish_wiz2 said:
Ahhh thats an interesting call. Is your unit still under warranty? I would get it fixed if possible, for how much theyre worth, i would like all outlets running. Ive had my APEX services for the variable speed ports.
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I bought it on 9/8/2013 so I would hope its covered. I contacted Neptune so hopefully they can get it fixed for me.
 
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ColaAddict said:
Be careful with titanium heaters that doesn't have its own controller. You should always have 2 controllers backing each other up, just incase 1 fails. A faulty JBJ controller caused my last crash.
Now my heating system is a heater with a built in controller and another controller as a backup.

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Click to expand...

ABSOLUTELY!!! I had a 500 W Titanium Rod with no controller hooked up to my Apex and it almost cooked my tank. Luckily my tank didn't crash. OF course in hindsight it makes perfect sense if outlet 1 wasn't working...
 
I had same issue with outlet on going out. They had me send it in for repair


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