inkbird issue.

[esoxlucius]

Came down this morning, fed my fish, noticed straight away water felt cooler than it should. Checked inkbird temp, and led readout was 28 degrees (I have it set at 25). Actual thermometer reading 20 degrees!!! So basically the inkbird was saying my water was 28 when in actual fact it was 20, that's 8 degrees out, which is potentially fatal for my stock.

So I took the whole unit from the tank and set it all up in the kitchen sink full of water. I went into the calibration mode of the inkbird unit and you can manually change it +/- so I recalibrated it by the 8 degrees it was out, and bingo, the inkbird is now displaying the same temperature as my thermometer.

Surely, I shouldn't have to do this to get a correct reading. The factory settings it came with should be correct, or at a push just very slightly out either way, but 8 degrees!!!!

This is the second inkbird that's had these anomalies. Play around with the calibration and yes you can get it right, but for how long before it suddenly decides to malfunction again.

I got the inkbirds solely because I didn't trust the thermostat contollers on the heaters, people say it's only a matter of time before they do malfunction and either cook or chill your stock to death. But now i'm thinking of ditching the inkbirds and reverting back to the heaters alone.

Anybody experienced anything like this with the inkbird?

 

[aria]

Never used an inkbird but I always calibrate all my heaters regardless of what it says it should be. Always double check. Could it be that it has been at 20 degrees this entire time and you just didn't know because you never double checked with a thermometer? my jager was about 5 degrees off, had to calibrate it. best of luck.

 

[squint]

I agree that this is unacceptable. I've been looking at heater controllers for sometime now but haven't pulled the trigger yet. Leaning towards a Ranco at the moment.

I'm currently using Fluval E heaters with the guards removed. Heaters with electronic thermostats should fail off rather than failing on like bimetallic strip thermostats. I'm not feeling a huge sense of urgency to switch to a heater controller.

 

[yzf450motoxrider]

I calibrated mine (inkBird) 6 months ago when i set up tank was off by about 2F watched it slowly creep up over the past three months. Just recalibrated it a week ago now 4.5F off. I wouldn't recommend them.

 

[esoxlucius]

Before I went down the route of getting a temperature controller I looked at various threads on here and did some other research too and people raved about the inkbirds and rancos. I can't comment on the rancos but I certainly have misgivings about the inkbirds.

Another hobby of mine is to make my own wine. Fermentation temps are quite critical and inkbirds are used by home brewers probably more than in our hobby. I use a flexible temperature belt which wraps around your fermentation vessel and keeps your brew at the right temp. But on my wine making forum a lot of people use inkbirds and have had problems with them.

I run inkbirds on both my 180's. One of them is brilliant and I can't fault it....yet! But my other 180 is on its second inkbird in the space of a few months. Whatever kit we all use to alter temperature in our tanks we have to be 100% confident in it and my patience is running low at the minute with these hit and miss temperature controllers.

The ironic thing is that when I did just use heaters I never had one that stuck on or died on me!

 

[Woefulrelic]

First I've heard of lots of problems with these units. I suppose I should get out a thermometer and test my ranco now that you guys mention it.