Help! Heater Malfunction.

[xx-miss-limber-xx]

No one is answering me in emergancies so i thought id post on here


BOTH heaters in my two tanks have malfuntioned whilst I was at the cinema this evening and all my dwarf puffers have been boiled to death and in my community tank all barbs and my yellow and blue labs are dead... catfish looking very worse for wear.

Still alive in my community tank are a silver shark and my pleco.. they look fine. Water is scorching to touch and the light showing the heater is still heating is on even though both heaters are still set at 26 degrees celcius. Whichever way i try and lower or higer the temp the light stays on... i dont understand whats happened.

Any ideas on my remaining fish I feel so sorry for them... its like a fish graveyard in there.

Help

 

[fatheadminnow]

Your heaters are toast, throw them out.

You need to buy better heaters so when they do fail, they fail on the "off" position, rather than on the "on" position.

-FHM

 

[OldMan47]

Unplug the heaters right now and get something going to circulate the water well for good oxygenation. As soon as you can, start the water change to replace some of the hot water with water more like the fish are accustomed to. Water of around 100F, 38C, will kill every fish in the tank in a fairly short time. Although your fish may not like room temperature very much, it will not kill them, especially this time of year.

 

[arobinson1984]

Take out both heaters straight away, it sounds like you have had a malfunction with the thermostat causing the heaters to jam in the 'on' position.

This isnt that uncommon, especially in cheaper heaters.

At this time of year in UK you should be ok to leave tank without a heater just until you can get another, room temp should be fairly fine, my tank is always around 26-27 degrees and my heater is never on lately.

You can buy additional thermostats that plug straight into your wall, then the heater plugs into them, they are designed to cut power to the heater if it detects a rise in temperature, cant remember which website I've seen them on but somebody has mentioned them on this forum before so hopefully somebody can point you in the right direction.

Andy