Thar She Blows

[Teelie]

Let this be a lesson to you; glass heaters suck! It was my fault though. I had stupidly set the heater too high in the water, then drained too much water, then added colder water back in with the thing still plugged in. Suddenly *POP* there goes the heater. I thought it was the filter at first then saw the water begin to bubble and quickly flipped the switch off the surge protector and unplugged it before waiting a few minutes for it to cool down then pulled it out of the water.

Fortunately no fish or snails and no glass appears to have been damaged by it but from now on, I'm going with ceramic heaters that turn OFF when they're above the water line (and don't explode if they are) and setting them much deeper into the tank. I finished refilling the tank after carefully looking at the glass for any signs of cracking, chipping or breaking and saw none but I'm still keeping an eye on it just in case. I'm going to be extra nervous for the next few days.

 

[my fat fish]

well that was cleaver lol i have alwys been caucious about doing that i fill my tank away from the heater

 

[Teelie]

I've been filling my tanks up this way for years but this is, was a new heater and I was lazy in placing it properly. My mistake and one I'll never let happen again.

 

[my fat fish]

hehe like they say once bitten twice shy

 

[Teelie]

Or, get smart and buy plastic. I have one of these in my shellie tank and it works great. Plus it's "shatter proof." I'm buying two. One to replace the exploded one, which was replaced by the original one, that was briefly heating a 10g. Fortunately the 10g only has a few snails and a female betta and is in my room where it stays warm most of the time.

 

[Gazoo]

I made a similar mistake with my heater. In my case, I thought I unplugged everything but forgot the heater was plugged in a different outlet .

Crackle......KAPOW! Visi-Therm 150

I seem to be very good at learning things the hard way. This is one error that will never happen again.

 

[Teelie]

This was a Visi-Therm 200 Deluxe. Strange conicedence there. I've used their non-submersibles in the past and they worked okay, in fact the original was a submersible but differently designed so I wonder if the newer models are somehow inferior?

 

[guppymonkey]

I had one heater blow up one time in my 55G community tank when I did the same thing. I drained it down half way and forgot to unplug the heater and didn't realize for a few days why my fish were looking so pale and lethargic. The main lesson learned is to NOT place heaters high in the tank, I have my submersible heaters almost on the gravel to make sure I don't do this again. Most heaters are supposed to turn off if they are not under water enough but its better to be safe than sorry. The plastic or stainless steel heaters also work wonders for this kind of situation.

 

[QuotheRaven]

there is a heater explosion epidemic!!!!!