My sad Story. I thought "oh, that is not going to happen to me" I was wrong in so many levels. After a year of introduce myself to the "saltwater experience" and the excitement of having a new part of the hobby... the worst happened. I had a 40g breeder as my first saltwater tank to try before I can go big. 3 weeks ago I came back from work and I did my regular routine at home, after that I make some tea and seat in my "fish room" to enjoy the view. Suddenly everything went very wrong I saw my saltwater tank and nothing was there and the corals were droopy. Yes IT HAPPENED! the heater cooked my saltwater animals. I lift the cover and the steam hit me! the glass was hot and the external thermometer showed 103F. I panicked... Nothing was alive, I lost everything and I feel so guilty! Because I never thought I would need a temperature controller. Lesson learned! I have now a new project a 90g and I will set it up slowly with everything in order to make sure that sad experience never happen again!
When heaters die they normally weld the relay in the additional heater monitor/controller together as well, more often than not (if it hasn't already welded together being near saltwater), it is also another failure point for stopping the heater doing its job (the relays in the controller normally fail on as well when they fail separately). They are false security and should never be used to actually control the normal on/off for the heater as the relays will fail real quick doing this with a large resistive load like this (let the solid state mosfet in the heater do this, not a mechanical relay in a separate controller). How do you stop heater failure causing problems?? Well you use a decent brand ceramic DC heater that has its own external controller that will have multiple layers of security/redundancy to prevent over heating (so dual mosfet and dual temp sensors) and then you put 2 of these decent heaters in to cover off if one fails. This will also have the added benefit of removing the mains high voltage going into the tank as well , it is 2023 after all and there should be no mains power going over the edge of tanks or being immersed in saltwater (dead is dead after all, say NO to mains voltage in you tanks)..... Frankly the idea of buying another controller that is more expensive than a decent heater is an uneducated way of thinking you are "reducing risk" when it does the complete opposite. Is there any issue plugging a decent heater into an aquarium controller, not really as long as both heaters are not plugged into the same socket and ideally they should be monitoring and trigged by different temp sensors for overheat protection and/or alert you to a failure. It has more benefit to monitor the heaters change in wattage over time to know when the heaters are due for a change and order in the replacement before it fails.
Good work Jimmy! 🍻👊🥰 I gotta get an Inkbird for my tank still, not gonna get an ato tho, I had a problem where my filter floss clogged up and my mark that I topped up to misled me and I made my salinity drop too much and lost a couple corals 😭 unfortunately an ato would have done the same thing so I plan to just top up my tank manually and now change my filter floss daily too 👊🍻🥰
i have a inkbird controler . had a big mistake. had heaters in overflows and temp probe's in the tank . my return pump stop working when the heater come on no water flow to overflow's . water got extremely hot also glass and cracked the tank . put temp probe's in the same area of heaters. if my temp probes were in the overflow also it would have shut the heaters off and not crack the tank.
I have a question about water top offs and water changes. I understand the importance of using only RODI water for top offs to assure that the salinity levels remain constant. What about when a weekly water change is needed? Should a top off be done a day before and then the water change be done the next day to assure that salinity levels remain constant?
I want a controller but in the past I don't have wifi at my house I do currently but don't know if I want to keep it so I want something that will control my tank but i can hook up to it Bluetooth when I am home and the price of the Neptune even the basic Jr that only has one thing i want ph is still 300 bucks that's stupid
@@jril3982 You must be one of the few that have had a good experience, even companies have taken their entire product lines to other suppliers due to the way they treat both their customers and suppliers. Have a look at how many have moved to BRS instead....
@@fishingmontana1564 There is always the option to build a reefpi if you are handy with electronics, you can plug it directly into lan cable or run wireless. Just don't rely on a mechanical relay to control or reduce risk on a high current device like a heater. Unfortunately anything with a little automation and smarts costs a bunch for someone to put it together for you.
@@dandano2602 I have used Neptune ATK switched to Hydros (using pmup and hydros sensors), tunze (freshwater tank), auto aqua (office tank). Not one issue with any of them.
My sad Story. I thought "oh, that is not going to happen to me" I was wrong in so many levels. After a year of introduce myself to the "saltwater experience" and the excitement of having a new part of the hobby... the worst happened. I had a 40g breeder as my first saltwater tank to try before I can go big. 3 weeks ago I came back from work and I did my regular routine at home, after that I make some tea and seat in my "fish room" to enjoy the view. Suddenly everything went very wrong I saw my saltwater tank and nothing was there and the corals were droopy. Yes IT HAPPENED! the heater cooked my saltwater animals. I lift the cover and the steam hit me! the glass was hot and the external thermometer showed 103F. I panicked... Nothing was alive, I lost everything and I feel so guilty! Because I never thought I would need a temperature controller. Lesson learned! I have now a new project a 90g and I will set it up slowly with everything in order to make sure that sad experience never happen again!
When heaters die they normally weld the relay in the additional heater monitor/controller together as well, more often than not (if it hasn't already welded together being near saltwater), it is also another failure point for stopping the heater doing its job (the relays in the controller normally fail on as well when they fail separately). They are false security and should never be used to actually control the normal on/off for the heater as the relays will fail real quick doing this with a large resistive load like this (let the solid state mosfet in the heater do this, not a mechanical relay in a separate controller).
How do you stop heater failure causing problems?? Well you use a decent brand ceramic DC heater that has its own external controller that will have multiple layers of security/redundancy to prevent over heating (so dual mosfet and dual temp sensors) and then you put 2 of these decent heaters in to cover off if one fails. This will also have the added benefit of removing the mains high voltage going into the tank as well , it is 2023 after all and there should be no mains power going over the edge of tanks or being immersed in saltwater (dead is dead after all, say NO to mains voltage in you tanks)..... Frankly the idea of buying another controller that is more expensive than a decent heater is an uneducated way of thinking you are "reducing risk" when it does the complete opposite.
Is there any issue plugging a decent heater into an aquarium controller, not really as long as both heaters are not plugged into the same socket and ideally they should be monitoring and trigged by different temp sensors for overheat protection and/or alert you to a failure. It has more benefit to monitor the heaters change in wattage over time to know when the heaters are due for a change and order in the replacement before it fails.
Good work Jimmy! 🍻👊🥰 I gotta get an Inkbird for my tank still, not gonna get an ato tho, I had a problem where my filter floss clogged up and my mark that I topped up to misled me and I made my salinity drop too much and lost a couple corals 😭 unfortunately an ato would have done the same thing so I plan to just top up my tank manually and now change my filter floss daily too 👊🍻🥰
i have a inkbird controler . had a big mistake. had heaters in overflows and temp probe's in the tank . my return pump stop working when the heater come on no water flow to overflow's . water got extremely hot also glass and cracked the tank . put temp probe's in the same area of heaters. if my temp probes were in the overflow also it would have shut the heaters off and not crack the tank.
this was cool thank you. know anyone that's running reef-pi? :)
Don't rely on that suction cup! Get a probe holder.
Hey Mark would love to see an update video off your 1000g system as I'm sure all your fans would 😊
I have a question about water top offs and water changes. I understand the importance of using only RODI water for top offs to assure that the salinity levels remain constant. What about when a weekly water change is needed? Should a top off be done a day before and then the water change be done the next day to assure that salinity levels remain constant?
Great. Now even Mark is pushing BRS sister company Neptune. How bout Hydros?
Have you ever had the displeasure of dealing with Coralvuseless, makes a lot of sense to me......
@@quadlawnmowerman I have.. they have been awesome. They have always been fast to reply and quickly take care of any issues. Great company.
I want a controller but in the past I don't have wifi at my house I do currently but don't know if I want to keep it so I want something that will control my tank but i can hook up to it Bluetooth when I am home and the price of the Neptune even the basic Jr that only has one thing i want ph is still 300 bucks that's stupid
@@jril3982 You must be one of the few that have had a good experience, even companies have taken their entire product lines to other suppliers due to the way they treat both their customers and suppliers. Have a look at how many have moved to BRS instead....
@@fishingmontana1564 There is always the option to build a reefpi if you are handy with electronics, you can plug it directly into lan cable or run wireless. Just don't rely on a mechanical relay to control or reduce
risk on a high current device like a heater.
Unfortunately anything with a little automation and smarts costs a bunch for someone to put it together for you.
I keep my house at 72 degrees as well!
How would you doing lighting for someone who works 7pm to 7am
You can have your lights on whenever you want. Your fish and corals don’t know if it’s day or night.
Auto top offs are sometimes not worth the effort and cost, they fail and break.
What? Been running a auto top off system for 20+ years. Never had an issue.
@@scuba_john4758 Which one?
@@dandano2602 I have used Neptune ATK switched to Hydros (using pmup and hydros sensors), tunze (freshwater tank), auto aqua (office tank). Not one issue with any of them.