Heaters for oscar fish

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=313866

a 300W Aqueon Heater decided not to shut off and we nearly cooked our tilapia recently...
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http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=252381

So we just came home to my girlfriends house to find her 75G at a low 73 degrees. First thing we turn to is the heater. It's a 300watt Aqueon Pro and it's maybe a month old if that. It's just blinking...it doesn't stay lit for more than a couple seconds.
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Interesting part of that discussion is a fellow from Aqeuon's R&D dept posted the following:

That is true but also can be misleading. Yes an electronic thermostat does eliminate the problem of contact points remaining in contact when they should have separated. However, an electronic thermostat can also fail for any number of reasons that can result in the heater overheating. Basically you are trading one method of failure for another. Although IME most of the time when an electronic heater fails it fails in to a shut off mode and stops heating entirely.

Most heaters today have a thermal cut off device built into the heater to prevent a fire in a run dry situation. Some heaters use switches that will reset when the heater cools down and some use fuses that permanently disable the heater. If you have ever done a water change and forgotten to unplug your heater first you probably have activated the thermal cut off. If the heater died afterwards then that heater likely had a fuse. The lights may still function but the heater will no longer heat.

Andy
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Which sounds good in theory, but it seems that they can fail in both directions, ON and OFF.

http://www.trophs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25793

Oh, and that thermal cut off that Andy was referring to, has also failed in aquarium grade heaters. Ask some of the old Marineland Stealth users about how well the thermal cut off worked.



And another failure .......

http://michigancichlid.com/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=5130.0

I am going to replace all my heaters as I can afford it. I am done with Aqueon!

This time the fish are not coming back. Lost all my Malasa Alto Comps that I have been growing out for a year. And, I think the breeding group of Ruby Greens is hit real hard.

So pissed off about this.

This heater failed just like the other... int he off position, even thought the light was green... the temp in the tank was 60 at most.
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http://reviews.petsmart.com/4830/4282556/aqueon-aqueon-pro-heaters-reviews/reviews.htm

I purchased this heater under 3 months ago. It was a good heater for 2 months, the temperature stayed as set. Then, it started intermittently failing - but you could shake it a bit and the light came back on. Now it's completely dead.
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I bought this heater about 2 years ago. It never kept the temparature according to what it was set to, usually overheating the tank. The light indicating it is heating the tank still works, but it is not heating at all. I would not recommend this product. I expected it to work for much longer than it has.
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I bought the 100 Watt heater for my 16 gallon aquarium since it is quite cold in my basement.
It worked fine for a couple weeks... then today i noticed that the light would no longer turn on green and say its at temp.
Of course I have no reciept or box for it... ANNOYING.
Have contacted the company. Not impressed.
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I purchased this item on august 13, 2011 by october 5th, it had stopped operating, I would not recommend anyone to buy it, I just threw away the receipt of course so no I just threw it out, bought a fluvial m100 to replace it...I have 3 tanks and using an elite which works fins for nearly 2 yrs and other tank has an Aquaclear for neary 3 years, never had to replace either since i bought them....just goes to show that spending extra money does not guarantee quality.
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This heater did not work from the minute I openind it. Never even got warm to the touch. Taking it back to the store asap.
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I bought a 150 watt for my 36 gallon bow front. For a month it seemed to work fine but then I noticed the heating indicator was on constant however the tanks temperature seemed correct. The next morning the aquariums temperature had dropped 3 degrees and the heater was fluctuating on and off several times a minute.
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http://wafishbox.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=10171

So I spoke with the service rep today at Aqueon and again they will replace the heater, that said they had no other information regarding these Pro heaters as far as them not working correctly. She was nice but it was also obvious that they have no real intention of having a product recall. I told her they should check forums and they would see that others are having issues with these heaters as well but I really doubt they will pay any attention to forums.
After our talk it was clear however that to really get anything done more people need to call in regarding this problem and I highly suggest that more people take the needed time to let them know. I am happy that I no longer have any of the Pro Heaters left in my tanks, I do however have the standard versions so time will tell if those will hold up. If not I will gladly switch brands (again) and I won't be looking back. I would also recommend letting the retailer where you purchased your heaters know as well, maybe they will stop carrying the garbage !
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Caveat emptor
 
Very happy with the warranty! Customer service was super easy to deal with too.
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And that my friend is exactly why these companies keep putting out garbage.
 
Picked up my first AqueonPro 250 two and a half yrs ago never had an issue and still going. Picked up 2 more over a year ago.........so far, no problems with these either.

All of my heaters are on controllers for extra safety insurance
 
Weird, there were some negative reviews like that but they were amidst a sea of positive reviews. It was like 300 5-star reviews and 3 1-star. And they were usually riddled with excessively poor grammar and misspellings so I kind of dismissed it as most likely user error. I will be purchasing controllers for them anyways though so hopefully that will eliminate some risk. Also the tank isn't even set up yet, I'm picking it up November 1st or 2nd and will still need to run the whole cycle so I'll be keeping an eye on the heaters. If they don't work, they were $60 total. No harm, no foul.


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Certainly no one should be panicking over the reviews posted here, pick any heater on the market & you will find the same thing. The reality is that a certain percentage of ALL heaters WILL FAIL, that is a simple basic fact. That, and you seldom hear from happy customers, but in general consumers will always take the time to complain about something. :)

Dr. Tim Hovanec, Ph.D. and owner of Dr. Tims Aquatics stated years ago on a public forum sometihng along the lines of that high quality "reliable" heaters would be priced out of the market for most hobbyists. Not a lot of people want to pay $100 or more for each heater that they require. Manufacturers will never admit failure problems, so they replace for FREE and most hobbyists will let it go and be happy that they got a replacement for FREE. Some will make a bit of a stink on a fourm or two, but soon those discussions scroll off into never never land only to be resurrected by someone like myself when I take the time to dig them up.

This is exactly what happend with Marineland Stealth back in 2011, intially it was a deny-deny-deny campaign by their reps, feeding the mases what they were told to say - no problem sir/mamme, here's your new FREE replacement. Then later came the "it's only affecting a few models" blah-blah-blah, then when the Consumer & Product Safety Commision forced their hand it was - oops, it's damn near every model of Stealth & Stealth Pro made in the past few years from 25w-300w units.

http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2011...Pet-Group-Due-to-Fire-and-Laceration-Hazards/

But that wasn't until AFTER there had been hundreds of complaints lodged, and a few explosions and some (cough-cough) minor unjuries. This recall didn't happen overnight, it took years.

Now keep in mind that Aqueon Pro has only been out for a few short years, personally I would be at least somewhat concerned when reading almost any negative press at this point. The people posting on the forums aren't riddled with excessively poor grammar and misspellings, these are generally experienced hobbyists, so this isn't their first rodeo. (even the ones that can't speel worth crap). That, and even one of their reps has suggested that their electronic thermostat heaters can indeed fail, in both the OFF & ON position.
Although IME most of the time when an electronic heater fails it fails in to a shut off mode and stops heating entirely.
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I would love to see their company stats on an actual failure rate ...........
 
Nigelk8485 said:
Weird, there were some negative reviews like that but they were amidst a sea of positive reviews. It was like 300 5-star reviews and 3 1-star. And they were usually riddled with excessively poor grammar and misspellings so I kind of dismissed it as most likely user error. I will be purchasing controllers for them anyways though so hopefully that will eliminate some risk. Also the tank isn't even set up yet, I'm picking it up November 1st or 2nd and will still need to run the whole cycle so I'll be keeping an eye on the heaters. If they don't work, they were $60 total. No harm, no foul.


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Pick up one of these to for an extra security blanket........for a mere 20 bucks
http://www.kensfish.com/aquarium-supplies/aquarium-heaters/finnex-hc-0800-heater-controller.html
 
RD. said:
Certainly no one should be panicking over the reviews posted here, pick any heater on the market & you will find the same thing. The reality is that a certain percentage of ALL heaters WILL FAIL, that is a simple basic fact. That, and you seldom hear from happy customers, but in general consumers will always take the time to complain about something. :)

Dr. Tim Hovanec, Ph.D. and owner of Dr. Tims Aquatics stated years ago on a public forum sometihng along the lines of that high quality "reliable" heaters would be priced out of the market for most hobbyists. Not a lot of people want to pay $100 or more for each heater that they require. Manufacturers will never admit failure problems, so they replace for FREE and most hobbyists will let it go and be happy that they got a replacement for FREE. Some will make a bit of a stink on a fourm or two, but soon those discussions scroll off into never never land only to be resurrected by someone like myself when I take the time to dig them up.

This is exactly what happend with Marineland Stealth back in 2011, intially it was a deny-deny-deny campaign by their reps, feeding the mases what they were told to say - no problem sir/mamme, here's your new FREE replacement. Then later came the "it's only affecting a few models" blah-blah-blah, then when the Consumer & Product Safety Commision forced their hand it was - oops, it's damn near every model of Stealth & Stealth Pro made in the past few years from 25w-300w units.

http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2011...Pet-Group-Due-to-Fire-and-Laceration-Hazards/

But that wasn't until AFTER there had been hundreds of complaints lodged, and a few explosions and some (cough-cough) minor unjuries. This recall didn't happen overnight, it took years.

Now keep in mind that Aqueon Pro has only been out for a few short years, personally I would be at least somewhat concerned when reading almost any negative press at this point. The people posting on the forums aren't riddled with excessively poor grammar and misspellings, these are generally experienced hobbyists, so this isn't their first rodeo. (even the ones that can't speel worth crap). That, and even one of their reps has suggested that their electronic thermostat heaters can indeed fail, in both the OFF & ON position.

I would love to see their company stats on an actual failure rate ...........
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I wasn't speaking about the people on this forum. I was referring to Amazon and various other places online when I looked up reviews.


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Mlsantos said:
I run two fluval E300 with digital screen in my 120 with no problems and it comes with protective cover

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Me too there jardini and jag proof so far had them about a year now , Oscars won't be a problem , plus there handy when doing wc's keep eye on the temp of filling water

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