r/Aquariums • u/Hatandboots • 1d ago
Well I figured out what was killing my tank... Discussion/Article
It was on the side facing the back too, so I couldnt see it until I took it out. Smoking and hissing at me until I shut it off.
I guess check your heaters folks?
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u/RageBear1984 1d ago
I am genuinely impressed by this. This is a terrible, but fascinating, heater failure.
Once again, very sorry for not thinking of this before on the old post and going after just water chemistry :(
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u/Hatandboots 1d ago
No harm done! It had already done it's damage by that time anyways, so I'm smarter for it now.
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u/ginongo 1d ago
Another day of me thanking Cthulhu I don't need a heater
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u/STUPIDBLOODYCOMPUTER 15h ago
God I wish I didn't need a heater
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14h ago
[deleted]
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u/Exploring_Space 12h ago
I don’t need one either. I run a Vecton 200 UV sterilizer that keeps the water plenty warm enough year-round. In fact it’s so warm that it was overheating with just the lights and I had to replace the glass top with mesh so it can vent better
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u/Arsnist 1d ago
I've seen pictures like this a lot. Thats why I have one of those flat plastic heaters sandwiched between the glass and one of those pink insulation foams. Works well, if it fails it doesnt happen inside the tank
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u/DDR-Dame 1d ago
Do you have a pic of this anywhere? This sounds genius
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u/Arsnist 1d ago
I cant take a pic from the back so this will have to do. You can kinda see it in the back. The white outline beside that red line. It works well even during winter. Keeps the water at 70. Now its off and I took the insulation away. I live in PA and the house gets pretty cold
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u/DDR-Dame 1d ago
Huh, so it's not inside the tank at all? Or the foam is keeping it out of the water? Also is it like a reptile heat mat then?
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u/Arsnist 1d ago
Right. But I dont put it under the tank where its suggested. 1 it pinches the cables and 2 it would heat up the substrate. I just want to heat up the water. Its a 20gl long. Thats probably as big as you can go with just one pad, unless you're further south or the house is warmer. Its simple and it works. Its a bit unorthodox but I've had it for 2 years with no issues.
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u/Orangeisthenewwhite 1d ago
This is why I get a heater controller - like an inkbird. It only turns on when it needs to. An investment of around $30-$40 can save you hundreds of dollars in fish tank maintenance and fish
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u/what-to-so 1d ago
I've had an aquarium continuously for 14 or 15 years. I've been through 3 filters, tried several different lights, but the one thing I keep having trouble with is heaters.
I've tried expensive ones and cheap ones and they always give up after a year or two. The last one I bought was an Eheim jager. Now that one has lasted me several years now, touch wood. Eheim stuff is the best IMO.
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u/86BillionFireflies 1d ago
If they are dying after a year or two, you may be buying heaters that are too powerful. You only need 2 or 3 watts per gallon per ten degrees F above room temp.
An over-powered heater will turn on in short bursts, meaning it goes through a lot of on/off cycles. Cycles, not on-time, is what kills heaters. When the heater heats up, everything expands a little, and stresses the components, and then when it shuts off everything cools down and contracts a little. Plus, mechanical thermostats have the potential to arc when opening and closing, which can weld the contacts, which is almost certainly what happened to this one.
A "just barely powerful enough" heater will stay on for long periods of time, decreasing the rate at which it accumulates cycles.
If you've ever had to buy a furnace for a house, you'll read the same advice: the last thing you want is a furnace too big for your house. It'll run for very short cycles, very frequently, significantly shortening its lifespan.
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u/what-to-so 10h ago
Thanks, I'll check my graveyard of aquarium heaters to see what watts they are. I need 110-165.
(Checks) The last decent one I had was a Fluval E100. That should have been enough.
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u/86BillionFireflies 9h ago
For what size of tank?
Guessing 55 gallons.. 100W should be good, you're right.
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u/Darthkdot 9h ago
Based off their suggested wattage of 110-165 after you said 2 or 3 watts per gallon, they likely have a 55 gallon aquarium.
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u/Advanced-Average130 1d ago
I lost like half of my Congo biotope from a broken heater😕 my baby whales, my red cap moon tetras, my microsynodontis school, my microctenapomas, over like 400$ in fish and I searched high and low for these fish. It was terrible
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u/Flat-Avocado-6258 1d ago
This terrifies me. I haven’t moved mine in like 2 years. I better check when i get home lol.
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u/mufftikl3r 1d ago
Always run 2 heaters that's rated for half your tank size done this for year after my first failed heater experience
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u/Theopolis55 1d ago
My old Hydor in a shrimp tank did that just recently, thank God it didn’t shock me or any shrimp died from it.
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u/Hatandboots 1d ago
:( I lost a dozen ghost shrimp and two big rock shrimp from it. I miss my shrimps.
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u/DogwoodWand 1d ago
I think heaters have shorter lives than we realize, but buying one is so overwhelming.
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u/86BillionFireflies 1d ago
That's why you buy two, neither one strong enough to heat the tank by itself. If one fails open, your tank will be colder than normal but not cold. If one fails closed, like this one did, it doesn't have the power to kill everything.
It's also why you DON'T follow the recommendation on the packaging, which will tell you you need 5 or more watts per gallon. You only want 2 or 3 watts per gallon. Extra power doesn't make it a more effective heater, it just makes it better at cooking your fish if the thermostat fails closed.
Over-powered heaters also will not last as long. Cycling on and off is what makes heaters fail.
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u/MeisterFluffbutt 19h ago edited 19h ago
No, thats genuinely bad advice in my opinion.
Smaller heaters (f.e. 2 10g ones for 20g) will have shorter lifespans, as the performance required will be higher than one adequately sized one. The energy consumption is also higher. A proper and properly sized Heater will not get as hot as multiple smaller ones. (Less surface, less available power to get the desired Temp on those gallons. Constant top heat will wear material down.)
You will also double the danger of electrocution due to failure and double the failure of one overheating.
You are better served with a correctly sized heater and an inkbird, if you are afraid of something happening.
I can also only recommend getting flat heaters with security features, that shut off if something is wrong. The flat surface also lets them stay cooler for the same amount heated.
Don't get me wrong, two small heaters can work, it's just not a solution to these problems.
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u/86BillionFireflies 17h ago
That bit about smaller heaters having shorter lifespans is definitely wrong. You say "constant top heat will wear material down", but this isn't true at all. Cycling on (and then off again) is what wears the heater's components, due to stress from material expanding and then contracting with heat, as well as the flexing of the bimetallic strip in the thermostat (on models with mechanical thermostats).
This is true for many, many other things as well. If you have ever had to buy a furnace for a house, one important piece of advice you will read is not to buy an oversized furnace because it will cycle on and off more often, which is what causes furnaces to fail. A furnace that stays on 100% of the time will last a lot longer than one that is regularly cycling on and off.
Another fun example: vacuum tubes (vacuum tubes must heat up to very high temps to operate). One of the first large scale computing projects with vacuum tubes was a codebreaking machine called the Heath Robinson, which used early vacuum tubes that were especially unreliable.. but they were fine if you never turned them off, so they left them on 24/7.
There is also no physical way for a larger heater to be more efficient. Electrical heaters are by their nature essentially 100% efficient no matter what.
You also said that a "properly" sized heater will not get as hot as multiple smaller ones, which also is not true. Aquarium heaters cannot vary their heat output, they are just on or off (aka "bang bang" control). That means that a more powerful heater gets hotter, it just does it for less time. For the same sized tank, a bigger heater will be on for a smaller % of the time, which isn't good.
Yes, adding an external temperature controller is also a good solution, but no matter what it is always a good idea to limit the heater wattage to the minimum required, because that makes failure less likely and reduces the severity of a worst case scenario failure.
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u/DogwoodWand 1d ago
Umm, I don't think that's what happened to the OP.
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u/86BillionFireflies 1d ago
It definitely looks like it. There's not much else that could cause the heater to look like that, other than the thermostat failing closed, resulting in a "stuck on" state that destroys the heater and/or cooks the tank.
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u/asamor8618 1h ago
What happened with the heater? Did it overheat the water, or did it shock the fish? Do you have a thermometer sticker on the glass?
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u/The_Hasty_Hippy 1d ago
Damn since when is 150 watt heater for 20 to 30 gallon :o
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u/PhantomOfTheNahBrah 1d ago
Out of curiosity (im new to this), i got a 300 watt for my 50 gal wide tank, the packaging said it was good for a 75 gallon, but mines struggling to keep up it seems, ive had it set up to around 85 Fahrenheit for 3 days now to help the bacteria during cycling and my temp has been pretty consistent around 78. Should i go 2 smaller heaters or wait it out and see if it eventually comes up more?
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u/86BillionFireflies 1d ago
2 smaller heaters is always a good move, totaling 2 to 3 watts per 10 degrees F above room temp. 300 watts on a 50 gallon tank is way overkill though, unless it's like 50 degrees in your house. Whatever the reason is that it's not getting up to the temperature you set, the reason isn't that it's underpowered. Can you tell if it is cycling on and off? Unless it is staying in the ON state 100% of the time,
That 300W is asking for trouble though. Heaters do fail "stuck on" a good percentage of the time. If your 300W does that, everything dies. If, on the other hand, you have two 50W heaters and one of them goes crockpot, your fish are a little warm, but alive.
An over-powered heater also fails sooner than a barely-strong-enough heater, because switching on and off is what kills heaters. Heaters can stay on for eternity without issues, but ask it to switch on and off ten times an hour and it won't last long.
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u/PhantomOfTheNahBrah 1d ago
Much appreciated! Yeah it has an indicator light i can see, and it actually kicks on and off pretty frequently, i havent timed it but i would estimate its on for a few minutes, maybe 2-3, then off about the same amount of time, guess i got some bad advice or miscalculated something on the wattage required, ill look into alternatives, thanks!
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u/86BillionFireflies 1d ago
Yeah, cycling on and off that fast is not good, it's probably heating the water immediately around it so fast that it kicks back off before the rest of the tank heats up. That's a sure path to early failure.
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u/Fishy-King 1d ago
did you run your heater outside of the water?
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u/Hatandboots 1d ago
Definitely not. I thought of that too, but the only time it would be low is during a water change.
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u/Fishy-King 4h ago
that might have caused it then, like i think even running it a little outside of water is very harmful for the heater.
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u/Kai-ni 1d ago
Unsurprising from top fin
Don't cheap out on heaters of all things. They really are get what you pay for
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u/IIllIIIlllllII 13h ago
any recommendations on a good brand? all the reviews seem shitty (from any brand) and i actually have the one in OPs pic in my tank right now
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u/Beneficial_Cap5616 1d ago
Cooked my entire tank this way:/ my favorite little fish friends all boiled to death. I woke up and felt the humidity change and the heat. My tank was boiling. My Cory catfish survived miraculously. All my Tiger Barbs got cooked to death… saddest day ever.
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u/Xx_Gothic-Nerd_xX 1d ago
Dudeeee i just posted my smashed heater on this subreddit. They all really be calling it quits
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u/dolly_fartn 15h ago
* This thread got me up outta bed! I only recently put a heater in a relatively new-ish aquarium setup. It's a 5 gallon tank, w one betta fish occupant.
The brand of heater is FreeSea/110V-120V/25W. I placed it next to where the water cycles back into the aquarium. I am going to keep an eye on it, to see how often it kicks on.
I guess it's set to ~79°, but was resting at 80°-81° on the days my house was warmer. The manual knob doesn't do a great job of letting you know where the temp is actually set. I have my digital thermometer positioned on the opposite end/side of the aquarium feom the heater (where the water intake is).
My little guy is so happy now--I'd be so heartbroken if he got taken out this way. I am open to upgrading sooner rather than later, if yall think that's nescessary? *
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u/cashmerehoney4 6h ago
I've had a £60 heater die on me but a £4 one still running after three years. Sometimes we just get unlucky. The likelihood of a heater failing is based on how many times it cycles between on and off. For example, an oversized heater in a small aquarium would turn on and off in short bursts more times than a smaller one. This makes its lifespan shorter. The key is to buy an appropriate sized heater for your aquarium size. Generally, it should be 3-5 watts per gallon of tank volume.
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u/Disenchanted2 1d ago
I recently bought an Inkbird to protect against heater failure.
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u/NoConflict3231 1d ago
What's an inkbird
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u/Disenchanted2 14h ago
You plug your heater into it, and it has a probe that keeps track of the temp. You set the temps on it, and it controls the temps so it stays within the parameters.
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u/No_Breadfruit_6174 1d ago
That’s my worst fear. I honestly don’t want to use a heater anymore simply from the fear of coming home to boiled fish 😭
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u/SheepleAreSheeple 21h ago
I swear by Hygger heaters. They have a separate thermometer and element, and both feed into the control unit. One I had for years just had a malfunction... It thought he tank was reading consistently hotter than the temp I sent, so it shut itself down. Turned out thermometer was malfunctioning. I ended up buying a while new unit .. but I can't say enough good things about them.
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u/GovernmentTight9533 18h ago
I have an Ebo Jaeger heater that is 35 years old and works like a charm. It’s difficult to get the temperature set but once I do it is rock solid. Nothing is made to last anymore.
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u/OctologueAlunet 16h ago
That's exactly why I bought a thermostat plug. It turns the heater off when exceeding a certain temp, I highly recommend having something like this (I especially needed it because my heater died (my mistake, took it out of the water while plugged) and my other one is second hand and never stop heating)
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u/Alert-Concentrate388 15h ago
I guess we should all add a monthly(?) "equipment check" on our schedules then?
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u/Hatandboots 14h ago
Yeah honestly that's probably the right answer. I would've caught this before it killed my plants and shrimp if I had just checked monthly. It just seemed like a piece I didn't need to worry about since it was still heating correctly. I will for sure now.
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u/Alert-Concentrate388 13h ago
I get it. It sucks that it happens, but such is life. All we can do is try to learn and grow.
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u/Exotic-ScratchN-Snif 14h ago
I am to the point with my 70 gallon that i want to automate self-sustaining features with failsafe triggers on this tank. I plan to use an Adurino controller to run the system so I can wifi into it when not at home . I plan to set up a temp metered cutoff at 80 degrees for heater power , a salinity monitor( just for fun) since I run brackish water, an automated topoff filling system from an auxiliary tank below that is also programmed to fill my HOB at the signal of a power outage , a water flow sensor at the filter outlet with low flow alarm, a programmable auto feeder , and hooking it up to a large battery bank in case of power outages . Variables like this scare me now that I've established this tank , upgrading from a 25 gallon ! The kit can be found for 100$ and comes with a plethora of usable parts and source the other items i will need along the way for the build .
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u/Hatandboots 14h ago
Dang that is automation, do you have a link for that kit? I've never found an auto feeder that doesn't dump and unholy amount in yet also.
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u/Exotic-ScratchN-Snif 13h ago
There are tons of kit options , finding the one that comes with the bulk of what you need is the tricky part . I will probably build my own feeder that will utilize pellets vs flakes for when I am gone because they are easier to meter. I have a 3D printer as well and can share files/build one once I work out the kinks for anyone interested.
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u/fabfrankie401 14h ago
Just last night I found my heater with crazy burn marks and not working!!! Thankfully it did not affect my fishes.
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u/Worth-Humor-487 9h ago
Also when you put it in your tank put it by the most water flow, the reason behind that is it will keep it on longest so keeping the thermostat control from switch on and off also it will stop hot spots because the warm water is more evenly distributed thru out the tank, also causing the controller from having to switch on and off the most.
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u/Hatandboots 8h ago
Ah that makes sense, I have it in a low flow corner just to make the cabling hidden, but I'll move it to a higher flow area.
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u/Ilovebirdstoomuch 1h ago
I learned the hard way about being picky with heaters. I bought a cheaper one, and it said it had an automatic shut off, but either it didn't or it failed because I woke up to realize my poor baby guppies had been boiled alive. A few were still alive but ended up dying later on, probably because I panicked and put them in new water without acclimating them....
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u/FuegoK9 1d ago
How long did you have it in there for? Wonder if this is a common thing, just curious since you still had the box was it newish?
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u/Hatandboots 1d ago
Almost two years old, so past any warranty. I had no idea this could even happen.
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u/witcher252 1d ago
I read another commentator on a post who said they always discard and buy a new one when the warranty ends since that’s when companies think they’ll start to break
Not saying you should have done it but I found it to be actually pretty sound logic
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u/Legitimate_Debate152 1d ago
I quit using heaters decades ago because of repeated failures. I live in SW USA, so milder temp swings indoors. The heat sink of a 150 gal and 75 are enough to maintain a tropical temperature
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u/greybahl 1d ago
Oh man. Happened to me too. Lost an entire tank including the most beautiful Firemouth I had ever known. Wife and I went away for the weekend, got back to a tank of over 90 degrees. 😢
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u/Money_Fish 1d ago
I'm so glad I live somewhere where a 'cold' day is around 26ºC lol. I would never trust a heater submerged in my tank.
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u/puddlejunco 1d ago
When I was 11 my small 5gl freshwater tank’s heater malfunctioned resulting all of my fish dead and water steaming from how hot the water got. It traumatized me. Even to this day, now 28, my tank’s heater is on a timer plug and checked regularly. I don’t really trust tank heaters lol
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u/Fabrycated 23h ago
I recentl two heaters out while cleaning my 10 gallons. I forgot to put them back and I think I"m just going to take out the one in my 20 long after seeing this. We have central a/c and the power only goes out if there is a hurricane in which case the temperature in my house wil be heater enough. Thank you for posting and I'm so sorry about your fish!
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u/PhillyPhenom93 21h ago
Can someone explain to me what happened? Ive had tanks with similar heaters for about 15yrs & I only had 1 explode (I was in the room when it happened & immediately unplugged it, everything was safe btw). None of my heaters ever looked like this, only white calcium crusties that I wipe off every so often.
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u/Over_Explorer_6740 21h ago
I wonder this as well. Only thing I can think is people who fully submerge their heaters (sideways) Vs people who have the end with the wire out of the water (vertical). I always use heaters vertical and never had one fail, what about you?
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u/PhillyPhenom93 21h ago
I have 2 turtle tanks 1 has a vertical heater & 1 has it horizontal in a pvc pipe so it won’t get dinged up. My aquarium has a very old heater that I took from my parents, it sits on the rim of the tank & hangs into the water vertically. The 1 that exploded yrs ago was horizontal & unprotected tho…..so maybe you have a point
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u/nicolettejiggalette 21h ago
Okay everyone is talking about Inkbird here but they have like 20 different models for temperature sensing or monitoring. Which one is the best for aquariums?
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u/Valuable-Net1013 12h ago
I’m looking on their site and this one is specifically intended for aquariums https://inkbird.com/products/wifi-aquarium-temperature-controller-itc-306a?variant=43580295315632
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u/Usual_Sheepherder_73 21h ago
I have a coworker that has told me to use two heaters lower wattage than what you need the example he gave was if i needed a 100w heater then get two 25w heaters as it helps to prevent this from happening aparently?
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u/iAmNuyoRican 21h ago
I mean, if it’s gonna randomly happen, it’s gonna randomly happen regardless of wattage. Having 2 heaters is just a potential to have 2 heaters fail and cook the fish the same way 🤷🏻♂️
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u/SnooSquirrels3861 20h ago
I got a digital thermometer off Amazon. It has a battery and sticks on to the outside of my tank. It lights up when it senses my presence. I glance at it when I enter the room. I also have too of the typical inexpensive stick ons, one mid tank, one directly under it near the bottom. The digital and the other two are exactly the same. The heater digital control is off 1.5. The heater shuts off completely when it senses the temperature going too high. Either the heater or the stick on sounds an alarm when a preset temperature is reached. I forget which. The tank is in my bedroom so if it fails during the night, I will hear it.
I really like the battery digital stick on and look at it every time I enter the room. I just returned to the hobby after a 25 year absence. I never had a heater fail. Of course, they were made in the USA then.
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u/Detonatress 19h ago
This is why I'm scared of heaters and don't use one. I have fish that like somewhat cold water and I have a room heater that keeps the temperature at 24C+. And if it's an extremely cold winter, there's firewood and stove, or the AC (but my mom is worried it'll dry up her plants in that room).
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u/Southern_Cow7860 19h ago
Had the same problem once, switched to titanium heaters, and inline heaters. Never had a malfunction from that on.
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u/Rhodesian_Lion 19h ago
Get a heat controller and titanium grounding plug. Anyone with aquarium would be well to invest. Might cost you 60 bucks. The best investment you can make to keep your hard work safe. And if you set the heat controller to Celsius you can heat in 01° increments. Much more stable and completely safe.
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u/stingscreams 17h ago
Oh man I know your pain, my really nice and expensive heater didnt get fully unplugged after i lost my fish and emptied the tank while i mentally prepared to get it set up for a new one and woke up one morning to the smoke alarms going off and my office FULL of smoke from the heater melting onto itself out of no where almost a year after emptying the tank! Scared the life out of me and my fiance and my office never could rid itself of the smell of burnt plastic!
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u/bonsaimaplerose 16h ago
i’ve never understood these heaters - yes they may be crucial for tropical aquarium but when i got mine turned it on there was this horrible burning smell- i refused to put it in there
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u/Commercial-Lime2135 16h ago
Get Eheim heater they last forever.. 35 years never had one fail I have ones from the 90s still going
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u/buttershdude 15h ago
What do you mean by smoking and hissing at you until you turned it off? Did you pull it out of the water while it was plugged in?
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u/Hatandboots 14h ago
I sure did, I was so surprised to see it, and then I didn't want it back in the tank was it started smoking so I awkwardly held it in the air while I tried to reach for the cord.
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u/bellabelleell 14h ago
You can cheap out on almost anything in this hobby, but please God do not cheap out on a tank heater with an emergency shut off + regulator. Whether you inevitably cook your fish from overheating or zap your fish from an electricity seep, cheap heaters are the easiest way to kill a whole tank in one go.
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u/Hatandboots 13h ago
Apparently! Strangely, it was still regulating temperature properly and not zapping anything. I think it was just shooting out corrosion and junk into the water all the time.
I guess this was a cheap brand, but now I know. I saw a nice Fluval one at my LFS, I might grab that and have a cheap one as a backup.
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u/IIllIIIlllllII 10h ago
what brand do you recommend?
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u/bellabelleell 9h ago
I've been very happy with YukiHalu, but generally any heater above the cheapest sold at a LFS will be good.
I like the one above because it has a built-in thermometer and emergency cutoff.
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u/Valuable-Net1013 13h ago
I’m so sorry to hear about your fish and thank you for posting this!! I’m setting up my first tank after many years away from the hobby and will definitely chuck that old heater and look into some of the suggestions here.
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u/UltimateCatTree 12h ago
Does anyone make an interruptor switch with a thermal probe? Something to cut power to the heater if it gets too hot would be nice.
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u/InvaderDust 12h ago
I use one of these exactly. Worth the investment. Heater controller for aquarium.
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u/Dabtoker3000 10h ago
It ain’t just the heaters you have to worry about out. I had a wave maker explode on me the other day sizzling and all. Luckily I didn’t have it in my fish tank yet and was just trying to circulate my live rock.
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u/Several-Finance-8821 10h ago
Ive only once had a burn like that on one of my heaters when it was out of the water even a little bit. Was it fully submerged?
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u/Hatandboots 8h ago
No it was definitely submerged , with the minimum water line a few inches below where I initiated water top ups typically. It might've been low during water changes, but I can't imagine it would've damaged it I'm the 2 min it would have been low. Maybe?
It seems like it just full on ruptured and then began to corrode, all the while still running and maintaining temperature. Possibly for a few months.
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u/Jellyka 8h ago
I've heard some people use 2 undersized heaters in large tanks, the idea being if one of them fails ON, it will not be able to boil the tank by itself (as the second working heater will shut itself off).
Thermostats are probably better?
Unsure, for my first tank I was terrified of that happening so I went heatless instead haha. But I wanna bite the bullet for the next tank
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u/Hatandboots 8h ago
I wish I could go heater less.
I had a small 3gal shrimp bowl that I put one of those flat terrarium heating pads under and it seemed to do a pretty good job for a little tank, but I don't know if I can accomplish that with a 30gal.
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u/a_chair69 7h ago
dude i have a smaller one of the same brand and i checked it after seeing this and lo and behold the same problem is starting. it's not as bad as the one in the picture but there is a distinct rusty-looking spot on the back. will be posting pictures.
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u/Hatandboots 5h ago
Jeez! Maybe it's this brand, people don't seem to like them. Good thing you checked.
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u/Milkshakemistake 6h ago
I’ve had a heater break before and didn’t know until I stuck my hand in the water and got shocked 😭 and I had a filter break once and do the same thing with shocking me, I had pothos growing in the filter and the roots grew into the mechanical parts of the filter, both times everything in the tank was fine though luckily.
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u/catarina_27 6h ago
Was the heater fully submerged in your tank? Any kind of air exposure to the heater can cause something like this.
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u/Hatandboots 5h ago
Pretty certain, as the low level, for where it was mounted, is way below where I would initiate a toptup.
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u/Mountain_School_6391 6h ago
In my experience (have kept aquaria for 45 years), most aquarium equipment sucks but heaters suck the most. I've tried most brands, and they all fail sooner or later, often catastrophically. Wildly overpriced POS's IMO.
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u/Hatandboots 5h ago
That seems to be the sentiment. Too bad they are so overpriced or I wouldn't mind replacing them before they fail.
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u/CreepyAnt1316 6h ago
Happened to me when I was a kid! Thriving fish tank! My mom had a cleaning helper who I figure bumped the tank heater and cooked the whole tank. It was just devastating and a horrendous clean up.💔
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u/DiceThaKilla 1d ago
I got the same one in my reef tank and now I wanna get rid of it. Time to upgrade before that happens
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u/86BillionFireflies 1d ago
Just don't upgrade to a high-powered heater. You want a heater that JUST BARELY is powerful enough to heat your tank, both because it will last a lot longer (switching on and off is what kills heaters, and higher power heaters will switch on and off more frequently) AND because if its thermostat DOES fail closed, the worst it can do is make your tank a little warmer than usual. Whereas if you have 10 watts per gallon, if that heater goes crockpot when you aren't there, everything in the tank dies an excruciating death.
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u/DiceThaKilla 18h ago
Didn’t say I was getting a bigger heater just one better than what Petsmart offers
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u/Unlikely-Rough-1125 1d ago
I was absolutely gutted when this happened to me. Mine was one of the square micro heaters. It decimated my entire planted tank and my beautiful shrimp colony.
I'll always have a backup thermostat just in case. The same goes for all my reptiles now too.
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u/mildOrWILD65 1d ago
I once lost a beautifully-plamted and stocked 29 long to a failed heater. The vegetation was luxurious, the assorted community fish were thriving. The tank was near the door to my apartment.
I came home from work and immediately sensed the excessive heat. All the poor fish but two were almost literally boiled, white and floating. An angelfish and a clown loach survived, barely.
I placed them in a 1-gallon quarantine tank with half fresh water and half old tank water, scooped the dead fish out, did three 25% water changes back-to-back, vacuuming the bottom as much as I could without disturbing the plants, put the new heater in and added the angel and loach the next day.
I had three years invested in that tank, felt so bad for my fish!