What heater do you use??

I was thinking about buying a new heater and wondered what heater you consider safe and reliable. 
I am leaning towards titanium.

 

I had a WON Brothers Titinium Heater for about a year before it failed off.  I guess that's better than failing on, but I was still dissapointed that it didn't last longer than a year.  I have yet to find a heater that I liked, and am interested in the feedback you'll get here.

 

I have this one, and it seems ok, although I've only have it a few months.......

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3743+18444&pcatid=18444

 

I used a Won Brothers titanium heater on my old 210 and it worked great. I believe kcrugger has it now and I hope it works good for him as well.

Regardless of heater, I think it's important to have redundancy in some manner. For example, I have my heater hooked up to my controller to come on at 76.5 degrees and shut off at 77.5 degrees. The temperature setting on the heater itself isn't set any higher than 80 degrees. Should the heater fail, it shouldn't go past the 77.5 degrees I have set on my controller. If my temp probe goes bad on the controller, the heater itself shouldn't go past the 80 degrees I have set on it.

BTW, I use a Visitherm stealth heater in my new setup and it has been working fine thus far...

 

Ebo-jager, most reliable heaters I have ever owned, the two I have are about 5 years old, still work just fine.  Going along with what Sone said, I also use 2 smaller heaters vs a single heater for the same basic reasons.  One sticks on it alone should not cause as much damage, also if one fails to come on, the other will still help keep your temp dropping to much.

 

wans seem to be the best out there. i have one thats been used for a few years now i think.

ebos have always been good heaters, i think they had some sort of a problem with them 8-10 years back and picked up a bad name. i have alot of ebos that run perfect and are at least 15 years old. i wouldnt hesitate to use one if needed.

 

I have had bad luck with Ebo Jagers. I now use Visi-Therm Stealths, and have been really happy with them.

 

I don't trust any brand of heaters...

I like the Wons the best Ive had two. One runs my reef right now. The other won't hold a temp and I just use it to bring make up water to temp. I had my Visi-Therm glass heater explode at 2 weeks old and they wouldn't warranty it or anything so Im not a fan. I heard good things about the old ebo-jagers but someone said they moved there production from Germany to China and the quality fell off so who knows.

I run a redundant system too. Its one of the best reason to run a controller. Normally the controller turns it on and off but if that flips out the heater will only go up another degree.

Heaters can kill systems faster than almost anything so it is not a place to skimp.

 

I use ebo-jagers, visi-therms, and my favorite tronics. I have never had one fail and the only time any have broken is when doing a water change and leaving it plugged in.

 

Great information everyone.  I'm  sure others were curious too.

 

Just curious if there are any new opinions on heaters - stuck a finger in one o fmy freshwater tanks to reattach the thermometer and got a bit of a shock (Stealth Visitherm in all my tanks - kinda wondering what might be happening the other tanks and if there is a better heater).

Thank you!
BC

 

I used to use all Stealth heaters, but almost all of them failed on me. I've switched to Ebo Jager. They are freakin massive, but have a history of reliability.

--AJ

 

I hate them all!
Althought the won heater I got from Sone is still working well on my cihlid tank. I bought a Finnex for the reef tank, like this
.http://www.premiumaquatics.com/aquatic-supplies/FI-HC-TH0800.html
So far it has worked well and seems to be of good quality.

I have had Ebos and stealths leak current into the tank as well as about every other brand you cam name.
I agree with Sone on the controller back up, but I have not bought one yet.

 

These are incredibly bad. I have never seen stainless steel rust & corrode so badly

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3743+8172&pcatid=8172

Now the titanium version of these I have good luck with. The only down side is they seem to heat very slowly.