Heater Exploded

[jossswonk]

Hello, my dad has a 10 gallon tank at work and unfortunately the heater exploded today. He said that all of his fish are fine but I've heard stories about broken heaters killing fish so I advised him to move all of the inhabitants to my 6 gallon just in case. Did I give him correct advice or was moving the fish unnecessary?

 

[GaryE]

The heater has to be unplugged and removed. If internal parts got into the tank, yikes. Removing the fish was a good call, and the tank may need a huge water change.

 

[jossswonk]

I believe my dad unplugged and removed the heater. I think I'm going to take this as an opportunity to redo the tank all together because it had some funky algae in there. I'm glad we made the right choice. I didn't want to take any chances cause he really loves his fish.

 

[SammyTargo]

At this point, just strip it down and thoroughly clean through it. Take it as a time to renovate your tank- as I just did with my 40 gallon!

I would also let the filter run through its existing filter floss with the tank running before you take it apart, in case glass from your heater or even microshards are in the column. Run it for 24 hours and then remove the filter floss for good. Thats a good way to limit the remaining microglass. I never had problems like this, but I am just giving my intuition's suggestions. No idea if it will be effective but at least it won't do any hard so may as well do it rather than risk it.

Regards,
Samuel

 

[jossswonk]

Thank for the advice, all of the fish settled into their new (temporary) home. It's a little smaller than what they're used to but they'll be ok for the time being. My Dad's massive female betta was showing stress stripes earlier but she's all good now