Broken heater

[fidofence]

I came home tonight and looked at my tank as I always do and I said oh my god. It had a look I had never seen before. The nem was closed and All the coral was closed up or dead. I ran down to my fish room and a heater in my sump had busted into pieces. I removed all the debris and I did a 100 gallon water change and added carbon and I hope some stuff recovers.

 

[dawgface]

Ugh you have some nice stuff too!

Did the clowns make it?

 

[fidofence]

So far all the fish are fine. If the clowns die I will invite you to the funeral as I'm very attached to them

 

[ghbrewer]

Man, sorry to hear about that. Hope everything remaining recovers.
What was the brand of the heater?

 

[fidofence]

I'm not sure what the brand was but it was probably the only cheap piece of equipment I had and I wished I hadn't used it now

 

[fishtank]

man sorry for the trouble. im starting to hear and learn that heater trouble is a problem in this hobby. In my field we pro-actively swap out some of our equipment every three years regardless of how it is running, sounds like I might take on this habit in the fish world. Heaters are cheap enough to swap out on a yearly or every 2 years basis I think.

 

[ghbrewer]

Less the Jager I just put in my nano, all my other heaters are titanium. I am thinking I am going to remove the Jager and get a NeoTherm or titanium heater after hearing about this.

 

[xyzpdq0121]

Wow.. that really sucks. Was it hooked up to a GFCI? This reminds me that I nedd to rehook up my grounding probe. Should have done it at the start of the winter.

Hope it all recovers.

 

[dawgface]

ghbrewer;942294 wrote: Less the Jager I just put in my nano, all my other heaters are titanium. I am thinking I am going to remove the Jager and get a NeoTherm or titanium heater after hearing about this.

Titanium will fail, absolute certainty.

 

[dawgface]

For the record I don't know enough about the Neotherm to make a comment yet..... But I'm researching.

 

[dawgface]

NeoTherm- 3 year warranty from a reputable company and not one negative review. Passes the first smell test in my book.

 

[fishtank]

I thought I read that the eheim jager heater's were pretty reliable. Is this not the case?

 

[ghbrewer]

DawgFace;942296 wrote: Titanium will fail, absolutely certainty.

I was under the impression that they were more reliable, at least compared to glass heaters.

I know nothing is certain when you mix electricity with water, just thought they took a variable (glass) out of the equation. Aside from grounding probes and GFCI, what else are we left with to defend against this somewhat common occurrence? Are we just to assume that it is an occurrence we will be faced with no matter what brand or type we choose?

 

[dawgface]

Heat causes the titanium to warp and fail around the one year mark. I've had all brands, same result.

 

[ghbrewer]

I have seen many distributers pushing the NeoTherm heaters lately, they look good, but are they just as susceptible to failure I wonder?

 

[dawgface]

ghbrewer;942303 wrote: I have seen many distributers pushing the NeoTherm heaters lately, they look good, but are they just as susceptible to failure I wonder?

I believe they are a glass heating unit protected by a plastic shell. So you won't have the warping issues but then again that is exactly what "stealth" heaters were and they were biggest blunder ever.

I think I'm sticking with jäger until there's sufficient time under their belts.

 

[ghbrewer]

DawgFace;942302 wrote: Heat causes the titanium to warp and fail around the one year mark. I've had all brands, same result.

Well, I guess what fishtank stated may be a practice I start to incorporate on my heaters as well:

fishtank;942293 wrote: man sorry for the trouble. im starting to hear and learn that heater trouble is a problem in this hobby. In my field we pro-actively swap out some of our equipment every three years regardless of how it is running, sounds like I might take on this habit in the fish world. Heaters are cheap enough to swap out on a yearly or every 2 years basis I think.

 

[ghbrewer]

DawgFace;942304 wrote: I believe they are a glass heating unit protected by a plastic shell. So you won't have the warping issues but then again that is exactly what "stealth" heaters were and they were biggest blunder ever.

I think I'm sticking with jäger until there's sufficient time under their belts.

So, just stick with the reputable heaters (such as Jagers), incorporate GFCI and grounding probes/rods, replace yearly maybe?

 

[dawgface]

Oh no, stealth problems already being reported with the Neo

 

[ghbrewer]

Thanks for the link Jesse.