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Which of these 2 heaters to buy?

under_water_ninja

under_water_ninja

High Tide Aquatics
LFS Owner
BARcard
This 1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ViaAqua-Via-Aqua-Aquarium-Heater-300-watts-Titanium_W0QQitemZ390023937708QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item390023937708&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2|65%3A15|39%3A1|240%3A1318

or this 1

http://cgi.ebay.com/300-Watt-Titanium-Aquarium-heater-Salt-Fresh-NEW_W0QQitemZ350115203730QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item350115203730&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2|65%3A15|39%3A1|240%3A1318

?????
 
Well, the top one says Via Aqua, and althogh I know a lot of people scorn Via Aqua products, I love them (my return pump is a Via Aqua 1300 which has run for 5 years continously!)

The bottom one is "300 watt heater".

I'm sure both are imported from China and are made entirely of lead and melamine, but if it were me I'd get the one that at least has a company name on it.

V
 
Oh boy. Try searching for Catalina threads :( I bet you'll find a ton in the MARS forum since Catalina brand is located near Sacto.

FWIW they appear to have a very poor track record and a worse CS problem from reading about them for years.
 
Yeah man...I would skim out on anything except heater. For something that can cook your creatures if stuck, it's worth upping the investment a bit to something better than those brands. My fav so far is Ebo Jager. But even so, I still run them through a secondary controller just to be on the safe side.
 
same here Robert although the thermostat on the new style Ebo's sucks and IMO requires a use of a secondary controller. I prefer to use Rancos on mine :)
 
I like Visitherm and Ebo Jagers, but I never rely on the settings on the heater ... those are utter crap, you need to use a thermometer and dial in the heater!

Some people use two heaters, one set slightly lower than the other, incase one dies.

When I went on vacation (2 weeks) during the holidays, my mother in law was staying at our place, but she's a space cadet so I didn't ask her to top off the tank, I had completely loaded the sump with RO water to the brim, but I took my ATO offline because it uses a medical dosing pump with an annoying alarm and I know I had no chance of explaining how to reset it.

When I came home, the return pump was frothing water and air, but it didn't run dry (it sits at the bottom of the sump and it generally just runs dry to the point where it's not completely dry)

Then I realized, like an idiot, that the heater is in the SUMP and when the sump runs dry and the return pump stops pumping...the display tank has no source of heat. Luckily the MH lights seemed to help it stay warm enough and nothing died!

It's never the things you think about!

And in terms of bad heaters, I know someone here who relied on a digital thermometer that did not read correctly and so set his heater too high. I'm now housing all his REMAINING corals in my QT tank.

V
 
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