heater

[reggie060]

I really don't want to wait, so I'm going to try here 1st. Does anyone here have a 500watts heater 4sale?? Reggie

[Blorton]

I'm assuming you mean you don't want to go mail order...

Instead of a single 500w heater, you should go with a pair of 250's instead. It's safer, more redundant, and since you will likely already have heat sources in your water column, you may find that only one comes on most of the time. That will save money as well reduce potentially life-shortening cycling frequency on the heaters.

If you are really trying to save money, print out all the heaters listed at petsmart.com with their prices, then go to the store and buy the pair you like best. They will pricematch their website as long as you have those printouts.

Hth,
Dan

[mojo]

You may want to check out the heaters for sale by Aquatic Ecosystems. I use one of their 500w heaters, and works perfectly.

As Blorton pointed out, you might want to go with two smaller ones for redundancy.

[JT]

For large heaters, I only trust Finnex brand. I've been burned many times by 500W heaters from Won brothers and other Chinese/Korean heaters.

Full line up of Finnex heaters here, I don't know of anyone who sells them locally:

http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merch...ode=Finnexheat

- JT

[kwl1763]

I tend to agree with JT go with Finnex if you want Titanium or Ebo-Jager if glass. They are the only 2 I ever recommend. Seen some serious issues with Won and other cheaper ones. I don't know much at all about the Aquatic Ecosystems one so I'm nuetral on it.

[mojo]

The Aquatic Ecosystems is no doubt made by someone else, as they're only a distributor. However, note that the other brands mentioned all have internal thermostats. Typically, you see the thermostat stick or go bad; the heating element usually doesn't go bad, esp. titanium ones, since there is a lot more heat dissapation capacity of the element. The Aquatic Eco ones only plug into the wall / controller / X10, so there's less to go wrong, but you'll need a controller (which may fail itself). I suppose it depends on what you want to do and what level of redundancy you want.

[robsmith32]

just switched mine to EHeim-Jager, no longer EBO jager.. but same heater. Just made by german company Eheim. As we all know Eheim as a manufacturer has an excellent reputation.
I tried hydor theo's and they heat the water up too much before they cut off. They might be accurate, but they have a large range before turning off. Had set to 77, tank got to 79, and i had to turn the thermostat down to 71 for to turn off.
EHeim jager are listed as +/- 1/2 degree on/off. I don't care how accurate it is as long as its stable.
So far since switching, tank has stayed the 77degrees according to the temp controller and the reefanatic temp monitor.
you can't beat sam @ aquabuys.com for them. and you can get them NOW. If drive to Lawrenceville. http://www.aquabuys.com Online price very competitive with other Internet sellers. And great guy to deal with.
I wouldn't trust any other petco/petsmart heaters in my tank again.

[JT]

Originally Posted by mojo

The Aquatic Ecosystems is no doubt made by someone else, as they're only a distributor. However, note that the other brands mentioned all have internal thermostats.

The Finnex heater I recommended has an external controller. In fact, look closely at the Aquatic Ecosystems heater you linked and you will see that it's a Finnex.

- JT

[mojo]

Ah - good catch. I own that controller and didn't even think to look at it.