Smoke/steam! Is It Safe? Advice Appreciated

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smudge_

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After i turned the tank back on after a water change, I was watching the fish and suddenly I heard a sort of hissing noise, then I opened the lid and I swear I saw smoke or steam rising from the water (no fish died)

Im now petrified of either killing the fish due to no power or burning my house down in the middle of the night.

Has anyone ever heard of this? Could a tank (I assume its the heater) actually catch fire?

What on earth should I do?
 
Maybe the heater?
 
I'm following this, because I have no clue! D:
 
plugged it back in minus the heater and still got a deeply worrying hissing/popping sound 
 
I cant leave this on.     

Do you think the fish could survive a night without the heater and filter?   Its platys, mollys and corys.
 
 
Im really quite upset about this, I spent quite a lot of money on this setup but now I think im going to have to take them all back tomorrow if the shop will take them
 
Maybe the filter has something stuck in the motor? (have you seen Finding Nemo? Something like that)
 
Do you have lights plugged in too or just the filter that is electrical in the tank? if it's just the filter take it apart and have a look at the impeller to make sure nothing is stuck, turn it back on in a bucket and see if if makes any noise and runs ok, the noises and smoke sound like a heater malfunction but you have said this is now unplugged so I guess it can't be that, I accidently forgot to turn mine off once and drained my tank and it hissed popped cracked and smoked!
 
Thanks guys I appreciate the advice.
 
I hadnt actually thought of the nemo example, but I did actually wash out the filter and it seemed to behave after.
 
I possibly foolishly did plug it back in and watched it very closely for a while.  It seemed to be ok through the night.  However first chance I get both heater a d filter will be returned for replacements.  Im just not comfortable with leaving them on unattended.
 
yet another £50 spent on the tank. But, light, heater and filter have been replaced.

I felt so uncomfortable with the tank all last night and today. Power was off today, water was cold but all seem to have pulled through ok
 
I've heard that sort of noise on two occasions:

1) I forgot to unplug the heater when I drained a tank, left it sitting for about an hour, refilled the tank. Heater was angry but survived. This can cause some serious problems, so try not to ever let this happen.

2) I had a light over a temporary tank. There was no glass lid or other sort of hood. Incandescent lights, I believe. Betta fish jumped up and the water splashed and hit the lights. The lights hissed because they were very hot. No need for alarm.

So sometimes a hissing sound is a very bad thing (see scenario one) or it can be nothing at all to worry over. You probably didn't need to replace everything, but since you already did, you can run a test tank to see if your kit is still usable. Just run piece on the tank at a time until you are sure that everything (or nothing) works.
 

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