Equipment Spotlight: Temperature Controller
Today’s aquarium hobby offers a plethora of options for gear. Some of it I would consider critical and others I would consider a nice to have. This may have you wondering if a temperature controller is necessary. After all most heaters come with a thermostat built into it anyway. Well, the truth is a temperature controller is a critical need to creating a stable environment for our aquatic pets.
The first benefit to a temp controller is stability. In the winter months in the Midwest here this isn’t much of an issue if our aquariums heater is sized appropriately. When the house dips down at night the heater keeps up and the temp is consistent from day to night. In the summer most of us keep the home warmer than in the winter. This can lead to the aquarium being heated above what we want it to because of lights and pumps also adding heat into the equation. For instance, I aim to keep my reef tank at 78° Fahrenheit. I also keep the house at 75° in the summer when we are not home. With just a 3-degree difference between ambient temp and tank temp I used to get readings up to 81° which I didn’t want. The tolerance of the heather thermostat is a wide range sometimes heating +/- 3° which is too much of a swing for sensitive livestock.
To control this at first, I tried colling fans. This offered stability within 2° which was better. Unfortunately, the salt creep started to corrode the fan motor and it became loud. Having a 125V power source actively corroding above my tank was not a safe situation so I started looking for options. Enter the temperature controller. After I set it up to heat a range between 78.0° and 78.5° it remained within the ½ degree range, even in the summer. This was a much better outcome.
The second benefit is safety for our aquatic pals. If you have been in this hobby long enough you have had a heater fail. Most often it fails in the on position and you find your beloved pets cooked. This is not only a heartbreaking event but can also be a significant cost to us depending on what you have in the tank. The components in the thermostat in the heater are the cheapest components available. Their failure rate is large. If the thermostat fails in the on position your temp controller will turn it off when the optimal temperature is achieved. If it fails in the off position, it will send you an alert and you will know when the temp falls below the range. This will give you enough time to get a new heater installed and save your scaly pals.
I have used the Ink Bird ITC-306a heater for about 6 months. After having cooked a few tanks back when I was a kid and seeing the 1/2° stability range it achieved in my reef tank this year I would recommend this to any aquarist. For less than $60 it creates a more stable and safer environment in your aquarium. There are great features to this device. It’s connected to my home wifi and I can check on it remotely. If the temperature is out of the range, I set it sends an audible alarm at the aquarium and a push notification to my phone through the app. There are even more cost-effective options out there without wifi if you want to keep cost to a minimum. Additionally, you can add another level of redundancy because he controlled outlet you plug the heater into has two positions. That means you can have two heaters plugged in and if one fails you will already have the backup in place.
There are many options for tank automation and control. Heater control is one of the least complex options in this space that has the biggest benefits to your tank. It offers a more stable option and an added layer of safety to your aquarium. This can be part of a larger automation scheme or one of the only things you add to your tank. After being in this hobby the majority of my life I can say that I will never setup another tank without a temperature controller and hope you consider one too!