Inkbird Heating Thermostat Aquarium Reptile Submersible Probe Sensor ITC306T Heater Relay Digital Greenhouse Temperature Controller Dual Stage Timer Time Switch ONLY Heat Plug Outlet NO Cooling

These temperature controllers work great! We keep at least one extra on hand all the time. We are slowly replacing our older finnex ones with these in all our tanks. They are easy to program, and easy to read from a good distance away. One thing we really like is the replaceable probes. The probe cables eventually deteriorate (2+ years) with the finnex units and we end up throwing the entire controller away. With these Inkbird units, if the probe cables do the same thing we can switch them out and keep the controller.The minimum step temperature you can set is 1 degree F. That means if you want your tank to be at 79 degrees, the setpoint is 79, and the step is 1. When the tank gets to 78.0 or below the heater will turn on. When it gets above 79.0 the heater will turn off. You can set a larger step but not a smaller one. If you have a minimum you want to maintain, then set your set point minus the step to that temperature to ensure it always stays above the minimum. It would be nice if the minimum step could be 0.1 degree instead but that's not a hard problem. You need some hysteresis or the control will oscillate and rapidly switch the heater on and off.

We keep fish. And we all check the tank temperature every day to assure the heater(s) are still working. And we use more than one heater to spread our bets. But then we set up auto-feeders when we take a well deserved vacation, and return home to 120 degree fish tank temperature and a bunch of suffocated fish.This device is more sophisticated than the internal thermostat in you heater(s). And I love it.The setup takes getting used to, but once you step through it, the device works- make sure you calibrate it to a trusted thermometer - my unit was spot on, but nevertheless you should check its accuracy and do the calibration step.Now that it's up and running, the temperature on my tank remains within the calibrated range - so much peace of mind.I STILL CHECK MY TANK EVERY DAY, but so far this controller is leaps and bounds better than the internal thermostats on my tank heaters. And the temperature display on the unit is so easy to read - great for older eyes...

The media could not be loaded. I really like this heater controller. Like a lot of other fish keepers, I’ve accumulated a lot of old junk aquarium heaters that can’t keep the temperature right. I would never trust my prized fish with the old heaters, but this heater controller saves the day and brings new life to my old heaters. I simply max out the temperature on my old heater and plug it into the inkbird heater controller. I drop the temperature probe and heater into the tank, and then set the desired temperature. That’s it! Works great and is more accurate than the internal thermostats of most heaters. I use this a lot in my small tanks to stop heaters from cooking my fish. I recommend it.

So if you’re an aquarist like me and tend to stress over what-if scenarios, you probably worry about your heater crapping out and cooking your fish and/or killing them of hypothermia.Aquarium heaters are not invincible and the first thing to break is often their internal thermometer—the thing that says, “Ok, water’s warm enough! We can stop heating it up more now!”And when the thing that tells the heater to stop heating breaks, well...Fish don’t do well in hot water. They just don’t.I got this thing so I wouldn’t have to stress over that so much. It is *not* a heater itself; you enter the settings you want, plug your aquarium heater into this baby, and if the heater itself breaks, the Inkbird keeps it from turning your aquarium into fish soup.I took off a star because it is a bit tricky to set up. The instructions are not the greatest, but once you figure them out, it’s fine. There’s an option to set it for different temps at night vs in daytime. If you don’t bother with that, it simplifies it quite a bit.Other notes: you’ll want to get an old-fashioned thermometer to put in your tank so you can calibrate this thing based on that. My Inkbird’s temperature sensor was several degrees off. No biggie; that’s why they built in a way to calibrate it. Just be sure you do, or else it won’t be accurate. Also, if your heater has an adjustable temperature control, you’ll still need to set that to the desired temperature as well.

I have 4 of these units and have been very happy with their performance. Gives added peace of mind for safety of much loved wet pets when using heaters in your aquarium. Quick response from customer service. Set up is easy if you follow the instructions.Update:I've just had two of my 2 year old units fail within a day of each other due to a faulty probe. Customer service quickly offered to send new probes but I've decided to upgrade to their 308 model which has removable probes whereas with the 306 you have to cut the wire and rewire the new probe in. This is a great feature. These are still very good controllers for the money and despite all the power failures we have where I live, never lose their memory.

I've been using this for a while to control an unreliable aquarium heater. Works perfectly.

These things are a necessary evil because they will keep heaters from going haywire and boiling your fish tank. However I feel like they should send me a free one or two because between buying one or two on here and buying them at Petco and PetSmart and other places I've been through so many of these to where maybe I should just replace my $20 heaters every couple of months and it would be cheaper than going this route. When they work they're great and I set mine like 3° difference you can tell when one heater has an issue like they suggest and I don't know why these crap out on me as it's a very simple thing as it checks the temp and it cuts power if it gets above it. My newest issue with the ink Bird is instead of it not turning on it's that my up and down controls don't work I can help the set button down and push set and go through all of the settings but but up and down button don't work so I'm at the mercy of its preset which is not what I want.