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whisper heater from wallmart cooked my three L128 and my colony of apple snails over night into a tank of $60 "fish stew"

seems like everytime i come back from colledge an aquarium product or appliance fails and kills some fish.

Really? Sorry to hear about your fish Thanks for the info though, I currently use two of those whisper heaters from walmart. I will keep a close eye on them now.

Ok, so a friend of mine has a bike shop, with a sign that reads... If you have a $5 head, buy the $5 helmet.. I equate that to the same when it comes to heaters, or other equipment, for fish tanks!

i also have a whisper heater in my fish tank (which i didnt buy at walmart, by the way), but i have a visitherm heater in my turtle tank, and it's awesome!! i might get another one for my fish tank too!

It's not limited to any particular brand, it's all heaters using bimetal thermostats.
Eventually the bimetal breaker corrodes, and the thermostat locks in the ON position.
It would be possible to design heaters so that they heat when there is no current passing through the bimetal breaker, and then they would tend to fail in the OFF position, which would be safer - but AFAIK no heater is designed that way, presumably because it would be a slightly more complicated/expensive design.

Personally I don't use heaters any more, after having two Jaegers fail on me this way within a short time. In heated rooms with strong pumps and light heaters aren't necessary, but merely an added risk. If one wants to use heaters, I'd suggest using two underpowered heaters instead of one powerful one. That way, when one heater fails - and eventually it will - it'll take longer for it to kill the fish.

If you have a $5 head, buy the $5 helmet

it wasn't a question of price but of availability.i didn't have time to wait for another to come in the mail.

In heated rooms with strong pumps and light heaters aren't necessary

i agree. this is what i do with my 120g that uses a cs t4 pump (lots of heat) but most of my smaller tanks use sponge filters and without a heaters they would get too cold in the winter in the basement.

If one wants to use heaters, I'd suggest using two underpowered heaters instead of one powerful one. That way, when one heater fails - and eventually it will - it'll take longer for it to kill the fish

this is hard to do in a 10 gallon, the only heaters i've seen under 25 watts are those micro ones.

i just don't know what kind of heaters to use any more. the "new" ebos from eheim are sh*t imo. out of two of the new ones the turn knob/calibrator was meesed up on one and over all they look alot cheaper than the ones before they were bought out. and most of the newer brands are to new to really get good feedback about

since this happened i decided i am going to put thermal cut outs on all my heaters. found one that cuts out @86 degree farenheight (lowest degree cut out i found) online. @ $8 a piece its a little pricey but far less than a cooked tank of fish.

I use visitherm heaters and have yet to have one fail. Their new stealth line even has auto shut off when out of water. That is what has worked well for me. Every heater I have is a visitherm. (about 15 of them)

I don't know which whisper heater you bought but any heater that hangs over the back of the tank is junk, don't care what the brand, they are junk. Most of the submerisble heaters made by the same companies seem to be of much better quality. If your whisper heater is a hang on then that is the problem. I recommend trying the submerisble heaters instead. Better yet, make it a visitherm, plus Marineland is a huge supporter of the hobby as well as making great products for us.

it was a submersible.


i have heard bad things about most heaters except less bad about ebos, at least until the sh*ty new models eheim makes came on the market.

Started using Ebo-Jagers years ago, and never went back. Only issues have been with calibration, some are +/- 4F at 85F, which isn't a big deal once you get things set up. (I find more variance with some thermometers) However, I do replace them after a year, labeling each incoming heater with an expiration date. The $15-$20 is cheap insurance against cooking a tank.

Didn't have much reason to check out other brands. However, a local high-end LFS dropped the product, claiming that the buyout resulted in a drop in quality. He replaced them with Visi-Therm (Marineland) "Stealth" heaters. I am trying a few out. The units are not as hefty as an Ebo, but like the Ebo, they do not rattle around. Temps are stable after two weeks, so they appear to be effective. The only gripe I have, is that they have no pilot light. Something to get used to, I guess. I just had to reach in and feel the thing to check that it was working.

Bottom line is that all heaters will eventually fail, most times in the "ON" position. By going with higher quality products you avoid early failures. But, when you consider all of the cash you have invested in a tank, swapping out the heater after a year or so doesn't seem outrageous.

Anyone out there have long term experience with the VisiTherm?

yup.

have them for years.
pro:
-nicely priced
-very reliable heaters
-you can actually turn the nob without using plyers and a blowtorch (without going mideaval on it ); try that with a RENA......
-orange light when 'on' (I don't have the Stealth-model, but the regular)
con:
-fragile! this is less so with the later batch, but I had a few shatter on me when they just appeared in the market. running the whole tank at 220 volts and sticking your hand in it, is not to be recommended! woke me right up, I dare you
-length! these things are looooooong; I'd like it a lot if they were a bit thicker and less long.
-not submersable! there's this red pencil-like nob on top, and it's not supposed to go down.

I do NOT replace heaters when they're older, if they still work, why?
I have another trick to avoid "cooking": understack your tank!
if you have a 500 liter tank; use a 250 watts heater. In a hundred; use a 50 etc.
Even if the thermostate goes Tchernobyl on you it gets maybe 30-32'C, 35 if it's going on particular strong; your fish will live.....

I agree with pleco farmer as far as the calibration on the ebo-jags , but once you get them to the desired temp they are great . I have 2 of them and they are awesome . As my tanks are in a fairly cool room with some pretty low swings in its temp I was always having to dork around with the other heaters while my tank that had the 10 year old ebo was always fine . Finally I just said to heck with it and bought the 250 ebo and have been as happy with it as I was with the old one which is still going strong . Well worth the 60 bucks CAN that it sells for here . I found that you really do get what you pay for .

Anybody use a Pro Heat Titanium heater? I have one and it's great, I don't have to get my arm wet to adjust temperature and it keeps the temp very stable. I bought it online for about $25 for a 350 watter. So far I'm very happy and I don't think I would ever buy a glass tube heater again, it just seems more logical to make the tube out of metal and keep the temp controller outside of the tank.

I have had one of those Whisper heaters from Walmart for about a year, and it's the only heater I haven't had to replace. I had a similar "cooking" experience with a Rena excel heater where it wouldn't shut off. I got a new one just to see if it was a fluke, and so far, it's keeping the temperature stable...but I'm keeping a close eye on it (and keeping the receipt this time).

One thing strikes me here...

I've had heaters fail, in both on and off-modes. But it wouldn't cost very much to use a simple chip for the "thermostat". But I expect that a couple of bits of bent bi-metal is much cheaper (a few cents compared to maybe a dollar), and that is why we see these pretty simple designs in the heaters. A chip-based design would be much more reliable, and at least as accurate as the best ones on the market now. Biggest problem is perhaps to generate a suitable low-voltage, but it since we're talking about milliamps of current, I expect it's not something very difficult...

--
Mats

i studied the defective heater and these have got to be some of the poorest sealed submersibles on the market. just pulled lightly and the glass tube came off! it appears to just be a simple compression seal with the rubber top going over the glass tube. the insides also smell like overheated/burnted ciruit board. the pad on the lower stationary part of the bi metallic strip has a melted/corroded crater where the top one meets it that appears to me to be the cause of the stuck switch.