marineland stealth PRO

so now I am in the mkt for new heaters. my visitherm deluxe 300w blew 2days ago & 200w blew yesterday in my 72gal discus tank.

water seemed to get inside them. when I removed the 200w with a plastic travel bag, it cracked in 1/2 & water spilled out. when I removed the 300w I noticed water build up/condensation near the top.

tank temp is down to 70 so had to remove my 20gal came with tank starter set up heater to the discus tank for now & leaving both tanks' lights on.

so I went to www.kensfish.com to order more deluxes. but reading this thread, are the stealths the new pro models?

since they have the auto shut off I would think some of you wouldn't have any overheating probs when left on out of the water (I left mine on when doing a major w/c & step away from the tank for couple hours, the heater fried/melted the suction cups - but still worked up to now - truly fried or cold as a coffin!)

but I've read in many other threads that the stealths have had so many mechanical probs - a lot of buyers had defective units.

almost every product in the mkt are made in china (& china has bad rep for skimping on quality at times)

so I may call ken to chg to the stealths if many of you are doing ok with them.

but would like some more feedback b-4 I call ken in the morning to chg my order.

thx all, hope all had a great xmas, hannuka, kwanza, holiday!
 
pinkertd said:
I just replaced all my Visitherms glass heaters with new Visitherm\ glass heaters. They've changed and improved them as well. I do see that the old ones were made in Italy and the new ones are all made in China.
Click to expand...

hey debs, may I ask why you replaced ALL your old visi glass to new ones? & why not the stealth pros?

thx ray
 
I feel that the heater is a critical piece of equipment on my tanks. And heater failure is a common occurrence, it happens more often than you think. If one of my heaters decides to stop working because it's reached the end of it's life, no matter which tank that happens in, it could cost me hundreds of dollars in fish loss or illness/meds. Several years ago I had a heater fail on me and cook to death a 29G tank of fish and fry. I guess it put the fear of god in me where heaters are concerned. I started with the two 300W heaters in my discus tank, replacing them every 2 years or so for my piece of mind. I'd use the older heaters to stick in other tanks that I needed to set up here and there. I realized i had a bunch of older heaters now being used in my other large tanks where I also have expensive fish and just didn't want to chance a failure due to an old heater. While I do run 2 heaters in each of my tanks above 40G, my house is kept cool during day time when no one's home in the winter...maybe 66F, and that's for about 12 hours each day. I keep all of my tropical tanks at 80F and the discus tank at 84-86F. So those heaters are working round the clock to maintin water temps in cool rooms. My 75G and 55G are in my bedroom which is at the end of the furnace line and also over the 2 car garage and it's always cool in there. I threw a couple of the older ones out, kept a couple as spares. I got to the point recently where I had no spares and had to pick up a heater, more than once, in a hurry when I've had to set up a tank real quick and I've never had one of those pieces of crap from local chain stores work properly. But I used them until I could place and receive an order from Drs. F&S for a Visitherm then I take the crap back to the store and get my money back. None of the stores anywhere near me even carry 300W heaters, they are all smaller. I usually buy the Visitherm deluxe heaters when they're on a good sale so I get them as cheap as I can. I'd rather take a chance on a new heater failing than the odds on an old heater failing. I don't want to loose hundreds of dollars of fish because I didn't replace a $20 heater before it failed.
 
I have to agree Deb...

I am pretty cautious, anal, about making sure the temp is perfect. That means testing heaters to ensure the calibration is correct...and also that they will maintain a constant temp...

I recently bought a used 72g setup and before adding any fish I wanted to make sure it ran properly. After 3 weeks of constant running, the pump was running in tip top shape and the temp was right with an older visiglass 300w glass heater...

Then BAM-O!... The temp dropped to 70 when i came back from a short vacation.. The heater was malfunctioning and I could see some condensation inside the glass heater... What would I have done if I had added stock to my tank?

Call it anal or precautionary tale...make sure your equipment is in good working order and that you have at least a "Plan B" in case of emergencies...
 
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