Heater controller protection

[Oldreeferman]

Thought id mention something I don't see talked about much if at all & that is water heater protection should the heater fail in the on position. There are several Digital heater controllers on the market that plug into the outlet and use a sensor probe you place in the tank to monitor the temp then you set them to the max temp you would like the heater to cut out at. The controller then cuts the power to the heater in an emergency when it fails & stays on. Some have alarms some not but a slightly cool tank verses a boiling hot tank is well worth the $30 to $50 for this must have safety redundancy. I've had 2 heaters fail in the past few yrs. & thank God i had a Max-300 controller on both tanks as 1 was stuck in the on mode, YIKES! I didn't know that a heater could fail while in heating mode & stay on i thought it just stopped working ....wrong. This dangerous issue is at the top of the list as needing a backup goes, if one backs up anything do this first. Old hats i'm sure all know this but i doubt newbees have knowledge of this impending disaster until its too late after months or yrs. of tweaking their pride & joy reef or fish only tank. Since all seem to be able to handle about 300 watts or so my advice is to run 2 heaters in the tank at the same time this way if one does die in the off mode you have a backup heater for the other issue of no heat. Both issues are then covered unless you loose electricity but most units have a memory setting chip so as long as the blackout isn't too long when it come back on you still have your original settings & hopefully a not too hot or cold tank due to ambient temps. Even a generator is no help remember its a bad heater not loss of power here that is at issue to anyone considering redundancy.

[Uncle99]

Originally Posted by Oldreeferman

Thought id mention something I don't see talked about much if at all & that is water heater protection should the heater fail in the on position. There are several Digital heater controllers on the market that plug into the outlet and use a sensor probe you place in the tank to monitor the temp then you set them to the max temp you would like the heater to cut out at. The controller then cuts the power to the heater in an emergency when it fails & stays on. Some have alarms some not but a slightly cool tank verses a boiling hot tank is well worth the $30 to $50 for this must have safety redundancy. I've had 2 heaters fail in the past few yrs. & thank God i had a Max-300 controller on both tanks as 1 was stuck in the on mode, YIKES! I didn't know that a heater could fail while in heating mode & stay on i thought it just stopped working ....wrong. This dangerous issue is at the top of the list as needing a backup goes, if one backs up anything do this first. Old hats i'm sure all know this but i doubt newbees have knowledge of this impending disaster until its too late after months or yrs. of tweaking their pride & joy reef or fish only tank. Since all seem to be able to handle about 300 watts or so my advice is to run 2 heaters in the tank at the same time this way if one does die in the off mode you have a backup heater for the other issue of no heat. Both issues are then covered unless you loose electricity but most units have a memory setting chip so as long as the blackout isn't too long when it come back on you still have your original settings & hopefully a not too hot or cold tank due to ambient temps. Even a generator is no help remember its a bad heater not loss of power here that is at issue to anyone considering redundancy.

Very true and quite relevant, I use the Inkbird for this purpose.