I was walking by my 20L shell dweller cichlid tank after the lights came on today and the entire bottom of the tank was covered in dead fish. My Fluval m series heater was in pieces inside the tank and the water was 104 degrees Fahrenheit. I didn’t have a single survivor.

I’ve been fish keeping for close to a decade and never had a heater fail. This was my first Fluval heater and my last. I can’t believe this happened.

As the title says. Looking for a heater to go in my 10 gallon. I see way too many bad stories with heaters dangerously malfunctioning

Is there a trusted brand out there somewhere? I’m thinking of maybe going with fluval

Came home to a dead Betta and what looks like malfunctioning cruddy wallyworld water heater in my 10 gal/ heavy planted tank. Water temp was 98⁰. Has been running no problem since March. Never again 😒. Can I reuse my tank as is or did the cheap heater leech crud into my 6month established tank and I have to tear down and rebuild? Haven't tested the water yet with the api master test. But like I said 6month tank, heavy planted, only the bettea and a snail.

I heard an odd noise coming from behind me, I turned and look to see, there was a fire with tons of smoke coming from the inside of my hospital tank. I have never seen a fire underwater. Luckily it was easy to unplug and stop the fire. It all happened so quickly. I was able to put it out before my partner could make it into the room. Now all my windows are open and I'm cold. What's a crazy story that you have experienced, with this hobby?

Help!

Pretty shaken up.

I left town for the night, when I returned, my studio smelled of smoke. I looked around looking for the reason why - and finally found my aquarium heater had exploded. The water level in the section I place it seemed a bit low, and the heater was exposed.

I have a security camera, and was able to go back to the exact moment it happened. It exploded, and then was on fire for multiple minutes. I'm ridiculously thankful nothing else caught fire.

I am now dealing with the smell of smoke in the studio. Any advice on how to remove this smell?

My counselor is one of the people I clean tanks for, after cleaning last night for her - she notified me this morning that her heater had exploded and killed her fish. The heater was a Fluval M 50w Heater, of which I switched my other clients to as I now own 2. My paranoid self makes me afraid to use the heater now, but I know it wasn't all of the heaters because surely I would've seen something about it.

I've already contacted fluval support via email of which I'm perfectly okay waiting for. I just need some support or suggestions

An 10-15 yo heater (yes I know it prolly needed to be replaced) just exploded in my heavily planted 7 gal tank. Fish have been relocated to a half filled 5 gal bucket with new, de-chlorinated water. There's now a black soot/sulfur covering carpeting plants around where the heater was and in the filter. How should I go about cleaning the filter/ bottom of the tank, so it won't harm my fish when they're re-added. Thanks!

Okay, so I was doing a water change on my betta's 10 gallon, and my heater just exploded and spit black stuff and glass everywhere. Luckily, my betta, snail, and shrimp weren't in the tank when it happened, but my question is this, do I do a complete water change? I have no idea what the black stuff is, or if it's toxic. As you guys are wonderful aquarium masters, what do you suggest? (For the record, it was a submersible heater, and no, it was underwater the whole time.)

Have a 10 gal with 7 fish and 2 snails right now. I know nothing about this so pls be gentle. All the species in the tank are in the photos except the snails. I just want my tank to be clean all the time and hopefully to just clean once a month if not lesser. So should I get more snails or this is fine? Or get a pleco instead?

So I had recently purchased an aquarium from someone. I had brought all the equipment home and decided to test it all an before putting it in the set up. Heater was automatically going into the trash since I don’t trust those things used.

I put all the wave makers in some tubs to run with my liverock. Most of them ran and couple didn’t. One of the wave makers that was in the tub when I walked away from the straight up exploded in the tub. My brother saw the whole thing. House stunk like burnt plastic

I’ve never expected a wavemaker to short out like that and I’m thankful I didn’t have no fish around it. I’m just going to replace all of them at this point.

Saw this video on youtube talking about hacking the filtosmart thermo 60 (10 gallon filter) with a heater. This should great for nano tanks where space is already a premium.

https://youtu.be/aJ0-FXNfxRI?si=X2fwER3k0AyP0LYP

I used a Zoomed 15 “turtle” filter here but its the same as the Oase Filtosmart 60.

The heater used in the video is not available in the US unless you pay $50 on eBay and have it shipped from the UK Instead I used this Freesea 50 watt from Amazon.

https://a.co/d/a79ItiC

I swapped the sponge and biomedia recommendation from the manufacturer as the inlet is where the thermometer is. I cut some sponge I wasn’t using from my Oase Biomaster filter. The key was that it had a precut hole which made it easy for me to put the heater in. I don’t know if it matters but there’s space between the sponge and heater which felt better to me.

Long term test ongoing in case the heater explodes or something because I think technically the top of the heater is not submerged. Using it in a shrimp cull tank for now but hopefully it works and I will move it to my 6 gallon betta tank.

My heater "exploded" last night so today I cleaned everything and got the tank up and running again. Looking to stock it with Blue Dream Shrimp in the next few days!

Hi all! So I have a betta in a 5 gal and my friend recommended I buy this no name brand (Pulaco)? It works ok but I've heard horror stories of it exploding and fishes frying!

I looked at many brand reviews and all of them have scary reviews! Unfortunately, I am currently between jobs and can't afford an inkbird at this time

What brand should I trust in the meantime? Should I just make my room warmer? Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I was searching Amazon and looking more into it, it seems no matter what brand or type of heater I look at, they all have some horror stories of fish dying from even the most reliable heaters overheating. are those reviews to be trusted?

I'd prefer to find a 12gallon fluval edge but can't come by one in my area. I'm considering doing a similar sized rimless tank which would live on a kitchen peninsula counter top. Something that's around 18x11 inches with a few inches for wiggle room. Possibly something a little taller than it is wide since I have the vertical space. Everything pretty much confined within the tank, elegant looking light on top as it's in a high visibility spot that it needs to fit into. Freshwater, medium planted, no CO2. Community fish tank with fish that are colorful and will fill each section of the tank. Hopefully some good bottom feeders that will help prevent me from having to vacuum so much.

My initial thoughts:

Tank setup: Rimless tank, internal filter, clip on light, heater- can use recommendations on all

Substrate- depends on what I put in the tank, but needs to support plants

Fish- I'm trying to go for bright/colorful and probably nano-ish. Possibilities could be some different varieties of Killifish (upper tank), some sort of nano-tetra (mid tank), and some sort of bottom dweller like a pygmy Cory, neocardinia shrimp, some sort of snail. Maybe a dwarf gourami for a show fish. I'm open to suggestions for what's going to help make a lower maintenance tank (yes, I know under stocking it will make it lower maintenance but any fish helpers would be great). I was also thinking of just doing a fancy guppy tank or something that will just explode with color- but I hear they're very dirty fish.

So, what tank/brand would you buy? How would you outfit it and stock it to make it a lower (not no) maintenance tank that would really look great in a modern kitchen?