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Check Those Heaters!


Bevo5

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Just spent 30min slowly acclimating a new awesome pair of naso's from C&C....put them into tank and my hand hit the water and whoa - real cold. uh oh.

Water is at 71...so no the end of the world but not great.

My EHEIM heater (about 30months old) just isn't firing up and I didn't have the  APEX hooked up to the internet so no alarms.  

put a back up on while I go find a new EHEIM. 

Check your temps!

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Yeah. You have to calibrate them against a thermometer. Just like our refractometers against a known 1.026 solution.

That one isn't the exact same as the one I bought, but it is quite similar. I paid ~14 bucks for mine and it works accurately up to 3 ft. After that distance, you usually just get the room temp.

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4 hours ago, milesmiles902 said:

Yeah. You have to calibrate them against a thermometer. Just like our refractometers against a known 1.026 solution.

That one isn't the exact same as the one I bought, but it is quite similar. I paid ~14 bucks for mine and it works accurately up to 3 ft. After that distance, you usually just get the room temp.

 

4 hours ago, milesmiles902 said:

Yeah. You have to calibrate them against a thermometer. Just like our refractometers against a known 1.026 solution.

That one isn't the exact same as the one I bought, but it is quite similar. I paid ~14 bucks for mine and it works accurately up to 3 ft. After that distance, you usually just get the room temp.

How do you test the surface temp? Or does it just go as deep as it can?

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Alright. I got curious. 

As we all know, different forms of light, penetrate water better or worse. This is why we see at deeper depths more blue than red light. The trend still holds true for infrared, which is at the red end of the electromagnetic scale. Blue light penetrates better than red light and far better than infrared light.

 

MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp_fig1.gif

As one can see the longer the wavelength (blue < red < infrared) there is more absorption.

The right hand side, shows the relative penetration depth in the infrared region at the specific wavelength. Although, we have to remember this is on a log scale. The amount of light absorbed increases by a factor of 10 for depth every unit displayed.

So, now it depends on the strength of the infrared laser in the gun. I couldn't seem to find it on the amazon page, but I bet it is weak. We would probably only penetrate 1-2 mm in depth.

Long story, because the thickness of glass, point it at the surface of water and not the side of the tank.

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For those without apex, or for a backup, these are great and only 35 bucks.  They will prevent the heater cooking, and can alarm if the temperature is too high or too low.

https://www.amazon.com/Inkbird-Temperature-Controller-Thermostat-Fermentation/dp/B015E2UFGM/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1493068704&sr=8-3&keywords=inkbird

Use a pair of pliers to pull the stainless probe off of the sensor and you are good to go.

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my system is pretty durable. I use this.. https://www.google.com/search?q=temperature+controller&client=ms-android-verizon&sa=X&biw=360&bih=560&tbs=vw:l,ss:44&tbm=shop&prmd=sivn&srpd=466882350852107576&prds=epd:699564730045312934,cdl:1,cid:1072488906883695803&ved=0ahUKEwj86ZfTocDTAhVH22MKHWN2DvEQgTYIwAU

and two finnex titanium heater elements.. the ones with no thermostats. I calibrated the controller with a glass thermometer. that controller looks cheesy but you can set temp and deadband at .1 degree increments... something you cant do with the inkbirds. and it has an audible alarm...something the inkbird doesn't have.

lastly, in case the controller breaks I have an old heater set a couple degrees lower than normal plugged into a separate outlet. It will only run if the controller breaks and temp falls.

I'm a big fan of the metal heaters, i have broke glass ones.. my fault, but still.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

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Go figure. I am in the roofing industry and when one of the guys says " looks like it might rain today" it inevitably does. Now I stumble upon your thread and a day later I am awaken by my phone chiming alarms from the apex that I'm below the tolerated temperature. At 3:00 am I wake up and investigate to find two of my three hearters are failing. I've had no issues for over 4 years thanks to you. 

Some things should be kept silent. Lol. 

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