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Thread: 2 Heaters, 1 Tank. Florida. Question...

  1. #1
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    2 Heaters, 1 Tank. Florida. Question...

    As noted, I'm in Florida (southwest) so I generally only use the heater to bring the tank up a degree or two above ambient (75) in the office when the AC is running. We typically only get a handful of "cold days" where the office might dip to high 60's or 70 overnight and I can run my office thermostat in "heat/cool" mode so it stays within a range. My target tank temp is between 79-80.

    I have a single 300 watt eheim, but just purchased two 150 watt titanium Finnex. The finnex does not have an internal thermostat and the heaters will be controlled via the Apex.

    I prefer to have my probes and heater in the display tank for more accuracy. Not to mention, if the return pump goes out and I need heat, the tank will at least continue to be heated versus boiling the sump

    So I have a couple questions...

    Am I looking for trouble using heaters with no built in thermostat? Should I be adding a controller to these heaters for redundancy?

    If not, is using the one temp probe just fine, or should I have two with the second as a backup? (I'm switching from an apex classic to the 2016, so I have a temp probe I can scavenge from the old unit)

    Should I run both heaters off the same outlet using a Y splitter? Coming on an off together?

    Or... Should they be on separate outlets running together?

    Or... Should they be on separate outlets with one coming on as the primary and if it drops below a certain temp, the second one fires up to support the first?

    Thanks in advance!

  2. #2
    Frequent Contributor zombie's Avatar
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    I would do separate outlets and have at least one of the two with a built in thermostat. Then you can code them so they take turns normally, both run if one can't keep up, and only one runs if comms are lost or your probe fails.

    Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

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    Quote Originally Posted by zombie View Post
    I would do separate outlets and have at least one of the two with a built in thermostat. Then you can code them so they take turns normally, both run if one can't keep up, and only one runs if comms are lost or your probe fails.

    Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
    That's a good idea. I have the new energy bar and the older EB8 or whatever it's called... I may even plug one into one energy bar and one into the other in case on of the energy bars fail.

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    Frequent Contributor zombie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by deputydog95 View Post
    That's a good idea. I have the new energy bar and the older EB8 or whatever it's called... I may even plug one into one energy bar and one into the other in case on of the energy bars fail.
    Definately do that. Redundancy is slightly less important since you live in a warmer climate, but even so the more redundancy the better. I always like to ask the question "if this fails do I lose all of my heat or flow" with every device in the system and if the answer is yes, find some way to separate things, add different coding etc to make sure there is no way you could ever lose all your heat (less important) or flow (up most importance)

    Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by zombie View Post
    Definately do that. Redundancy is slightly less important since you live in a warmer climate, but even so the more redundancy the better. I always like to ask the question "if this fails do I lose all of my heat or flow" with every device in the system and if the answer is yes, find some way to separate things, add different coding etc to make sure there is no way you could ever lose all your heat (less important) or flow (up most importance)

    Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
    Agreed.

    I'm going to return the finnex heaters and get two 150 watt eheims instead. The 300 watt version, albeit simplistic, works really well and the thermostat, when calibrated, is surprisingly accurate. I would rely solely on the thermostat built into the heater, but it is effective as a backup if the Apex goes offline.

    Thanks again for all the info.

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