Exploding Heater

[dallasflyfisher]

A little lesson for the newbies and the veterens alike.
UNPLUG YOUR HEATER when doing water changes and Don't forget
.
I was doing my normal water change in my Biocube 29 and got distracted with my 8 and 10 yr old helpers "helping me" I unplugged the filter, skimmer, and began to change the water. POW, PUFF, SMOKE< my heater blew up!!! As you can imagine I was scared the following thoughts came to mind.
1. I sure wish I bought a titanium grounding probe.
2. Don't put my hand in the tank.
3. Why didn't my GFCI trip?
4. What's dead.
5. I'm a dumba$$

Good news, the tank survived I didn't lose a single snail, nem, fish etc.

I am writing this to help the newbie and hopefully save someone else the fear I went through while pulling broken glass from my filter chambers.

 

[newtofish]

Same thing happened to me. Mine blew up in my hand. I had the heater in the sump and thought I unplugged everything and drained it. I was moving stuff around and felt the heat. Like a dummy I reached over and tried to pick it up.
Burnt my fingers and had small glass fragments in my thumb and three fingers.
It is a lesson that only takes once to learn!

 

[TriggaFish99]

I had a nice little burn mark on my carpet from an unplugged heater.

 

[bimmerzs]

:shock: ....Hopefully all will be well, serk had a similar occurrance with a much different outcome. If any part of the heating element made contact with water, I would suggest another water change and also running some poly filter and additional carbon just in case. :wink: http://www.dfwmas.org/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=21540&highlight=copper

Cheers,

 

[Joncelone]

Heaters can be a scary thing. Always put a little extra time and money into buying a heater. I had a heater go bad in my 40g hex once when I had about $120 worth of african chiclids in it. The heater's auto shut off never came on and by morning I had $120 worth of barbeque.


DO YOUR HOMEWORK AND GET A SMART HEATER!

 

[bimmerzs]

@Joncelone wrote:

All heaters can fail no matter how much they cost or who's name is attached, bad thing is that most fail in the on mode. A better option is to have a controller controlling the heater, a dual stage controller will control a fan and a heater and keep a more stable tank temp. :wink:

Cheers,

 

[Joncelone]

bimmerz, do you happen to know of any cheaper controllers like that?

 

[bimmerzs]

@Joncelone wrote:

Those are actually the cheapest option I am aware of other than a knock-off version of these, but can't remember the name. These can be usually found, used for ~$60. You can alway's do the single controller version but the dual is much better imo. I had one controlling a chiller and a heater and it was flawless.

Cheers,

 

[Joncelone]

Single control version might be worth it for me. I only have a 12g nano so I can't see buying a huge chiller. Right now I have my heater on a timer where it turns off before the main lights turn on because those are a heater themselves in a nano. What do you think? Stick with my timer or get a single control version?

 

[bimmerzs]

@Joncelone wrote:

It work's great with a fan and heater also. I prefer the dual just for the increased temperature stability aspect of it and if you upgrade to a larger tank in the future, you can still use it without having to buy additional "controllers".

Cheers,

 

[Jeff]

I just got a temp controller in a trade that has a stainless steel temp probe and a dial on the box with two outlets marked Fan and Heater. You set the desired temp on the dial and plug in the two accessories. I have to figure out how to mount the fans but I also found the same type of thing in the Marine Depot catalog that just arrived. (I think)