Bad heater controler

scjpll

Non-member
Just got a call from my wife and the heater controler stuck on and spiked my temp to 98.9 lost my frog spawn hoping that is all but will see hoping. My mushrooms will b ok ....
 
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John K BRS moderator
 
That stinks. I had a heater issue a while ago. It basically turned my tank into reef soup. I hope yours isn't that bad but 98 is real high. Sorry.
 
im having heater problems to but nothing that bad, yet. during the summer my tank got hot like that tho and i feel ur pain man it sucks!! hope all turns out well
 
I got a controller from a fellow reefer and it definetly makes me feel better having it, yes the temperature probe on the controller can fail as well but set the temperature setting on the heater a couple degress above the controller and you should notice in time if one fails and then the second.
 
Agreed on using a controller in addition to the thermostat on the heater. Controllers seem pretty expensive up front, but I sure don't hear many people say they regret getting one.
 
Just got a call from my wife and the heater controler stuck on and spiked my temp to 98.9 lost my frog spawn hoping that is all but will see hoping. My mushrooms will b ok ....

This is why you dont turn your heaters all the way up.

The controller should be set up to turn off if the heat goes above a certain temp, but the heaters should be kept below that temp. So this is a safety in case heaters fail.

I never understood why people put their controller for like 80 and put their heaters at 90.

that said, sorry for your loss.

EDIT: your title is misleading. When you said: "heater controller" I thought you meant a controller used for the heaters. You might want to change it to: "bad heater THERMOSTAT"
 
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That stinks! Hope all is well. Best money I ever spent was on my reefkeeper. One less thing to worry about is huge in this hobby.
 
This is why you dont turn your heaters all the way up.

The controller should be set up to turn off if the heat goes above a certain temp, but the heaters should be kept below that temp. So this is a safety in case heaters fail.

I never understood why people put their controller for like 80 and put their heaters at 90.

that said, sorry for your loss.

EDIT: your title is misleading. When you said: "heater controller" I thought you meant a controller used for the heaters. You might want to change it to: "bad heater THERMOSTAT"

Oh, this could be confusing??

OP, are you saying the heater stuck on, or it was on a seperate heater controller and that stuck on, or are we talking about a system controller that stuck on?

There are things like titanium heating elements that don't have their own controller built in and and rely on a seperate control unit, and IIRC some of those heat controllers look a bit "iffy" to me. I'm holding out on more info on the set up.
 
my heater does not have a thermostat. it is made by blue line, ok what controler is everybody using i looked at reef angel... withc i like but the price..... not sure if a diy is cheeper.
 
If no thermostat then what were you controlling it with before?

Any good system controller should be just fine.
 
It was probably one of those ones that have no thermostat and just automatically go to a setting that was set at the manufacture, I have one of those on my son's turtle tank.
 
Are you sure that isn't meant to be used with a controller? If it doesn't have a thermostat then what would determine the temp?
 
It was probably one of those ones that have no thermostat and just automatically go to a setting that was set at the manufacture, I have one of those on my son's turtle tank.

Are you sure that isn't meant to be used with a controller? If it doesn't have a thermostat then what would determine the temp?

OH..Is it one of those $10 tetra (or whatever they are called) heaters they sell at Petco?
 
no i mean the controler sits out side of the tank and there is a sensor in the dt. the heater plugges into the controler and sits in the sump. i bought it from skiptons a couple of years a go and it was like 200. for the controler and the heater.. here is a pic of ithttp://www.bing.com/images/search?q=blue+line+heater+controler&id=362363BB08796CA1C03F6B7D329845B46E4CD9C0&FORM=IQFRBA..
 
OK so it was using the blueline contoller and either that failed, the temp sensor part of it failed, or the temp sensor got knocked out of the water causing the heater to stay on.

As far as I know that blueline unit should be fairly high quality (not positive, but in general they make good stuff). What I think most of the people were referring to when we were talking about controllers was aquarium system controllers like the reef keeper, apex, Reef angel exct. Idea being if you have two controls then either can save you in the case of a run away heater. Ie, use the built in thermostat, or the heater controller like the blue line and then have that plugged onto the system controller with one temp setting set just a hair higher than the other so that if one fails and sticks on the other will save the tank.

*Sorry if I just re-stated the obvious. Sometimes it's hard to tell if everyone is following the discussion or not??

Is it possible that the blueline controller's temp sensor got knocked out of place? That seems like the easiest possible explanation for what happened.
 
no the sensor is still onn the glass, the controler locked on and when i unpluged the controler and pluged it back inn it reset and let me adj it. i thing there was a spike and it locked on.. ans started making soup.. the frog spawn is gone and the yuma mushrooms that i just got are gone. at least i did not loose any fish my pta is looking better and better every day. wife wont let me buy any more coral until the tank is all set and i get a new type of controler...
 
Sorry for the losses. Sadly heaters seem to be the most dangerous of all the equipment we use. Way too many sad stories like this out there.
 
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