You know everyone knocks on the zilla tstats, but for small collections I think they work fine...I had one for over a year, and it never once gave me an issue. Would I use this on the long term, probably not. I since replaced it with a ranco, but when I first started I opted to use one of the zilla ones. I was tight on money, and didn't want to rely on a dimmer anymore. Just make sure you monitor it daily making sure its turning on, and turning off at the right point. I would say if you only got 50 bucks to spend there ok.
I didn't run into this problem...One important thing is they all have to be running on identical heating elements. Meaning they all have to be the same size. Different UTH's have different amount of current that run through them, so if you have different sizes hooked up to one tstat you'll run into that problem. I did have to insulate my one tank by putting a towel underneath the uth. Just make sure each tank has its own thermometer, and your monitoring each of them separately and not going off of one reading.
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