Reef nutrition

when to replace heaters?

fishy408

fishy408

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i have a few heaters (finnex) that range between 2-4 years probably. They were working prior to tank shut down but not sure if they should be replaced or cleaned. If it can be cleaned whats a good method?

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In short, the thermostats in most heaters cycle a lot and are relatively cheap ($30ish gets you everything, heater and controller). I run an Inkbird thermostat to switch on or off my solid state titanium heater from BRS. Previously I ran Eheims for 2 years, then replaced them out of fear of breakage. I had not had a bad experiecne myself, I just heard enough horror stores to make the switch. I would test your heaters and internal thermostats for sure before relying them for temperature control. My view was assess the cost of the heater, vs the cost of a heater failure.

Vinegar or citric acid to get the scale off.
 
Questionable...but my brs heaters are only the metal portion without anything else. I go back to test it, and do you trust this thermostat, or is it worth the $40 for the Inkbird thermostat
 
It's probably fine, if you saw bubbles actually coming out of the ends I would pull it though. Some bubbles on the surface may simply be microbubbles that attached, however if you actively are seeing bubbles coming from it then there's something wrong with it as they should not be getting hot enough to boil water, and bubbles may be due to water infiltrating inside the heater (they're only titanium on the outside)
 
I’ve been trying to figure this out myself and came to the conclusion that a titanium heater failure would be that it doesn’t turn on which is easy to handle. Assuming it is placed somewhere that would become dry then the risk of staying on is mitigated by a controller or inkbird. So I plan to use mine until it doesn’t turn on, and I have two heaters so that the tank doesn’t get too cold when one eventually fails.

I would use the heaters you have and spend money on preparing for their eventual failure rather than prematurely replacing them.

Take my advice with a grain of salt because I’m at about 18 months in the hobby and don’t have personal experience with failure. I’ve just asked this similar question/researched how to prepare for heater failure and this is the conclusion I came to
 
I saw bubbles come out of the end for 10-15 seconds. Not going to risk it and just toss that one. How about the one with the foot that came off? I am thinking that is ok, but need to do a little more research. I have already ordered an Inkbird and another heater for the main display tank, was planning on using one of the older heaters as a redundancy or for the future quarantine tank.
 
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