# Best heater for my money!



## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I've been using a different type heater for a while now. It is the ViaAqua titanium heater. We have located two different places which stock this item:

Where I bought mine:
https://www.petsolutions.com/Via-Aqua-Titanium-Heaters+I16971630+C1021.aspx

Where another poster found what appears to be the same item:
http://www.lnt.com/product/heaters/...is-via-aqua-submersible-titanium-heaters.html

I had the feeling that this heater might have some major advantages over heaters which have all the control, contacts and temp sensing in the glass tube with the heating coil. Today I found the control which is located outside the tank, has screws to that the cover could be pulled to see what they had inside. This is what I found inside the control box.

A nice big circuit board, screwed down to the box. Good solder joints that look like I would want. With this much space they don't have to scrimp.










Took the board out and looked at the works. Some things I liked were:
Good solid molded on cord retaining ridges.
A nice solid sized LED indicator light. 
Several transistors. 
A couple small IC chips
An actual honest rheostat for a control
A real pot to set the temperature dial reading









The biggest thing I saw was the way electrical current is switched. I feel the main breakdown on many heaters is the contact points. They are very tiny and switch 110AC through the points each time they open and close. That makes for a lot of arcing and they fail quick. When the contacts are inside the heater tube, they operate every time the air temp rises and falls. This makes them switch a lot more often. When the temperature sensing and controls are outside the tube, the contacts only operate when the water temp changes. 
I found this item uses a stepdown transformer to cut the switched voltage down. I didn't measure what voltage they used but I'm confident it is much less than 110. Maybe 12 or 24 volts? With some of the parts on this board, I'm sure they are doing some work to reduce the arcing in other ways as well. The contacts are an item to love!!! They are actually in a molded relay and when they operate you can feel them move as well as hear them click. They have got to be much better than the tiny ones we often see in heaters.

I think this is the heater for me. I'm quite impressed. Certainly impressed at the price, too.


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## Duke79 (Jul 16, 2010)

I noticed that Foster And Smith Aquatics have a heater called "ViaAqua Stainless Steel Freshwater Heater." It has a controller that is seperate from the heater and is outside the aquarium.

Is it similar to the heater you are suggesting is the best on the market?


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## jrf (Nov 10, 2009)

Thanks for the detailed analysis. I can't really afford to put temp controllers on my smaller tanks and these look like they may just be a decent alternative.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Whether they are the same, I don't know. They may be just missing the description of their heater. A stainless steel heater would not seem as good to me. Titanium is the far better metal for heat transfer. It is the metal of choice for high dollar backpacking cookware. You might look at the two sites I mentioned and try to compare the two. Would sound odd that ViaAqua would put out two heaters with remote controls, one stainless and one titanium but then odd things do [/i]happen.

I have wanted a separate out of tank controller for quite a while bu prices up around $100 put them out for me. One of the points I liked on this heater was the price. While it is twice as high as some heaters, it is still in my range for practical as I feel it will last much, much, longer and do away with some of the worry about killing fish. I feel I can paid $30 dollars or so if it keeps my whole tank from frying and dying! I did that once and it was traumatic to me.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I went to the fosters and smith site and it does look the same with some minor differences. My rubber fitting on the heater tube appears exactly the same. The lettering on my unit is white rather than red/blue. My unit has a sticker identifying it as titanium. Whether the two are the same and just a foul up by an ad writer who didn't recognize titanium or two similar heaters is a guess. Before ordering the one I would verify that it is in fact stainless or titanium. They should be able to tell by laying hands on which is true. Stainless is great for long lasting heavy use stuff but for heat transfer but still many of the features of stainless, I would pay more for titanium. Current business ethics does not make it unreasonable to think they might try to confuse the buyers with a cheaper product. Buyer beware is very important.

Nice price but is it the same product??? :roll:


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Small point on the pricing- The second site I mentioned has 99 cent shipping. Seems to make it quite a bargain.
http://www.lnt.com/product/heaters/...is-via-aqua-submersible-titanium-heaters.html


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