Social Feed

Please remember I have returned from the dark ages, and am catching up with all things tech in this hobby. Others probably already know this, but in case anyone else new to higher technology aquarium keeping has the same issue, feel free to learn from my mistakes.

First, yes, I have a heater in a planted tank. Is it essential? No. Why am I using one? I have a large tank, in a basement.

While we have a great HVAC system, we also have a disabled very large retired livestock guardian dog that lives in the basement.



He is a 200lb Spanish Mastiff that is tetraparetic and requires a Hoyer lift, and a wheelchair, to assist his mobility, or my back would be absolutely broken (my husband already has a torn shoulder from lifting him). This spinal problem is degenerative, and as it progresses he becomes less heat tolerant, and gets heat stressed if the room is too warm, which is about 9 months of the year. If he had his way, the room would be set to 30 F (-1 C) year around. So we run the AC in the warmer months to keep him more comfortable. If you ever come to visit my tanks in person, you WILL need a light sweater. I only mention this, so we don’t run down the you don’t need a tank heater, why are you using a heater?, firing line. As I don't have arctic species of fish, I have the heater for the livestock in the tank, not the plants, with a simple goal of maintaining a more STABLE temperature for the tank (23 C). Keeping said dog comfortable causes the tank to fluctuate quite a bit.

Anyhoo, back to the Inkbird issue.

I started with two Biomaster2 thermo canister filters. I switched one out for a Netlea SS V.2 DC pump filter (which I love), but that removed a heater, and the Biomaster 2 850 is not sufficient alone to maintain tank temp without triggering constant heating alarms on the Inkbird ITC-306A controller (dual heater model).

Last weekend, I added a Chihiros Pro inline heater between the Netlea and the yugang reactor. This morning I got another E5 continuous heating alarm from the Inkbird. I could see the temperature trend on the Inkbird chart from late Monday through this morning were in continuous decline, suggesting the heater(s) weren’t heating the tank. The Inkbird did its job, in that it told me something was amiss. I am just tired of the E5 alarms.

I thought the Chihiros pro would resolve the E5 errors. It turns out, the Inkbird controller and the Chihiros have a conflict of interest, and the Chihiros pro heaters aren’t really compatible with Inkbird controllers. Lesson learned. It looked like the Oase heater was trying, but it's underpowered for a tank this size (142 gallons). One issue that was mentioned by Chihiros is that the repeated powercycling from the Inkbird can wear the components down in the Chihiros inline heaters prematurely. The other is that the Chihiros requires handshaking via its Bluetooth controller (like all things Chihiros) to resume normal function, so once the Inkbird senses it has reached target temp, and shuts the Chihiros down, the Chihiros heater may not resume normal function when turned back on.

Rather than retype it, a few Google searches later, my AI conversation referred to this as ‘Power Cycle Amnesia’, which certainly would explain why my Inkbird’s trend chart was in decline (also makes me wonder what happens after a power outage).



This is what I was seeing on the temperature trend chart from the Inkbird. It looked like it did after I removed the second Biomaster, before the Chihiros heater arrived. However, for your entertainment, this is why you should NEVER automatically trust everything AI tells you. This was AI’s first suggestion to remedy the situation, that I simply set the Chihiros heater, brakes fully off, to 35 C/95 F



Does anyone see an issue with this scenario? 'Blast maxiumum heat without hesitation'. Needless to say, in the event of an INKBIRD FAILURE, I wasn’t comfortable with that approach



There. Your morning giggle. You're welcome. And no, I do not hold much stock in AI responses, but honestly these days it is difficult to avoid in most browser searches, and sometimes it's fun to see what AI has to say on a subject, but responses are always digested with a heavy dose of skepticism due to their sources (FB/Reddit etc.)!

So, for those running the Chihiros Pro inline heaters (@Naturescapes_Rocco , @JayP ?), do you trust the Chihiros inline heater’s thermostatic controllers to shut the heater down in the event that it would overheat, or are there smarter controllers out there (Rocco, is yours running independently, or via the GHL Profilux?)? I can’t be the first person to try plugging in a smart heater to an Inkbird, as I inherently don't trust heaters for tanks, but apparently that was not the right thing to do. I am fine unplugging it from the Inkbird, as it should function better, just not sure how I feel about trusting it in the event of a component failure. The Inkbirds run the standard glass rod heaters fine, as they have simple on-off thermostatic controllers, and those heaters often fail in 'stuck on' mode, but Inkbirds are pretty simple tech, and aren’t really designed for these high tech heaters. Just not sure how much I trust the Chihiros to operate completely unsupervised, as Chihiros equipment is so heavily app/Bluetooth dependent, especially when I am out of town