Heater Controller and Canister Filter

[JasonsPlecosCichlids]

Some of you may have remembered the Eheim canister filter with a built in 500 watt heater that malfunctioned on me and cooked all my fish in a 200 during my move.

I made a post in a FB Fish Group and some guy basically told me it was my fault that the fish died because the filter malfunctioned and I wasn't monitoring the fish.

He said and another said I should have had a Heater Controller connected to the Eheim. Has anyone here tried that?

 

[Woefulrelic]

If the motor and heater are on the same power cable a heater controller wouldn't be much help. It would have to turn off the pump every time it turns off the heater, only to kick it back on long enough to hit ideal temps. I'm not sure how the eheim units work however. You could add a heater controller only to kick off when it gets to cook temps, but I wouldn't feel nearly as comfortable with that as traditional glass heaters on a heater controller.

 

[jamntoast]

yea as far as i know it is designed to work independantly. to say its your fault that it cooked your fish is to say that its anyones fault if a heater malfunctions. i check my temps pretty much when water changing or if i notice the fish are acting odd. like woefulrelic said, i think its all connected in the filter as one unit so if the power to the heat turns off, so does the filter and you will only be filtering half the time which i'm sure wouldnt cut it. i'm kinda disappointed to hear it screwed up, i like the idea of a built in heater but i guess its just more things to go wrong.
have you talked to eheim at all to see what they say?

 

[JasonsPlecosCichlids]

Sure did, they wanted me to send them the canister with postage paid both ways so they can test. I trashed it instead.

I was sitting here thinking how would this even work correctly, maybe this is something I missed as a preventative, but looks like its not.

 

[Woefulrelic]

Only way to make it work would be to set the eheim where u want it like 80 and set the ETC to shut off above say 90F. The filter would shut off but so would the heater... Would save a fish fry but its still not a great scenario, and I wouldn't trust the ETC basically set to always on.