Omg - The Plastic Case On The Heater Melted - At 26c!

[Ami]

Now I know why the poor baby was acting weird!! God knows what nasty chemicals were going into the water!

I don't get why it melted! The thermometer in the tank says it's 26c and the heater is brand new and only arrived on Friday! Poor Dudley was probably getting slowly poisoned to death since then.


I am so mad cos it took over a week for the f$%£ing thing to arrive and I'd paid £7.25 for courier delivery! Bloody Surrey Pets - what crap service for a first time customer.

Worst thing is, I put the guard on to protect him as I noticed he liked to swim around it and was worried he'd get burned.


I've checked the BW tank, which has the same 50w Superfish Combi-Heater and Protector (from a different supplier) but no guard on it, and that seems fine. Will also check the FW tank in a mo cos that has the guard of the BW heater on it because the suckers on the FW heater wouldn't stick anymore.

Am now doing a 100% water change, poor Dudley is sitting in my fish only bucket at the mo in some tap water with ammo-lock in it and he's not sitting on the bottom anymore. Will monitor him as much as I can over the next week to make sure he's not got any permanent damage.

Just thought - could it be my fault when I did the water change yesterday? I did turn his heater etc off whilst doing it so I didn't get electrocuted or anything (paranoia again) but didn't allow it to sit awhile before turning it on again. Couldn't live with myself if I've poisoned the poor baby!!

Don't even know if his filter sponge and sand or plants or anything will be safe to use as they might have absorbed some of the nasties. Aargh!

Am off to clean out his tank and wash some fresh sand etc. Fortunately, I've got a spare heater that can keep him warm but no more seeded filter media as someone has suggested that the bacteria in my FW tank aren't mature enough and I can't risk stealing theirs. Will just have to keep doing water changes every day until his replacement filter gets colonised.

 

[catxx]

wow that's bad. good luck getting poor dudley better!!

i use visi-therm, fluval and reef heaters
they all seem fine.

the fish r fun heaters are rubbish though, don't get those.

 

[Ami]

My poor baby is now back in his tank after a 100% water change and he seems much better for it!

His stats are at NH3 0 (thanks to the ammo-lock), N02 <0.1mg/l and N03 <12.5mg/l.

I wanted to check a couple of things:
(1) Can I use Nutrafin cycle on the tank to try and replace the bacteria that I'm presuming are now poisoned?
(2) Should I add some stress coat or revitaliser tonic to the water? I know you guys tend to use melafix, but I don't have any of that yet.

Please help.

Ami

wow that's bad. good luck getting poor dudley better!!

i use visi-therm, fluval and reef heaters
they all seem fine.

the fish r fun heaters are rubbish though, don't get those.

I won't - thanks for the warning. I now need to get another heater for him so I can remove the spare again. Just as well I got that!

Ami

 

[JoLtNbolt]

If he's the only fish in there, I don't think you need to do daily water changes. Weekly should be fine. Maybe the thermostat on the heater didn't reset when you plugged it back in? Or, maybe it reset itself eventhough it hadn't actually cooled off, and then when you plugged it back in it continued to heat the tank thinking that it was starting at room temperature.

 

[Mr.September15]

Why dont you look at the package and see what its made out of (if there are ingredients to a heater) D. Yeah I know not that time to be humorous. Anyways I think that you should SUE! or is it SEW!. Bah! Me and my spelling.