Heater Exploded!!!

[H4Rk3R]

Man... got back from the meeting in O'side... and what do i find... my tank looks like a nuke went off inside... im thinkin oh crap, no flow? check the pumps and power heads... all runnin... so i check the temp and find it to be 70... check both my heaters and one is exploded in the sump and the other magically has a loose connection... grrrrrr!... now ive got every aqu. heater in my house in my 150 trying to get it back up to temp...

so should i water change my tank? i mean i had a heater explode in it and my skimmer is going crazy... if so, how much do you all think? its a 150 w/ 60 sump... =/...

[H4Rk3R]

bleh.... my frogspawn is melting away... =/

[ajn81]

that sucks. sorry to hear it.

[CBlanks]

How are your fish?

[acronautical]

How long do you think this may have been going on?

[nahtanoj]

had this happen, went to titanium heaters, never going back.

[H4Rk3R]

ajn81... thanks for the sympathy... i've never felt such stress before my tank did this... =/...

CBlanks... all fish seem to still be happy... cept i havent seen the yellow rose goby... but everyone else is accounted for...

acronautical... well i left for work at 2pm friday night... and came back today around 5:30pm... so around 24 hours... i hope less tho...

nahtanoj... what did you do when this happened? so far ive pulled about 20 gallons of the water out and put 20 of scripps water in... thinkin about going and getting another 40 gallons tonight to do some more water change tomorrow...

[nahtanoj]

it was only on a 29g tank, and i was home when it happened, so minimal damage. unplugged it, did water change, got new heater.

[H4Rk3R]

so probably go get some more water and do the w/c again tomorrow?

[bkh_sd]

If it was me I would do a full water change. Get scripps water. Fill a few buckets or rubbermaid with it. Heat it. Take all your corals / fish out of main tank and put them in the buckets or rubbermaid, acclimating them of course. Completely drain tank. Preheat new scripps water. Refill tank with new scripps water. Let it run for an hour or two. Move corals / fish back to tank.

[Jessy]

If it was me I would do a full water change. Get scripps water. Fill a few buckets or rubbermaid with it. Heat it. Take all your corals / fish out of main tank and put them in the buckets or rubbermaid, acclimating them of course. Completely drain tank. Preheat new scripps water. Refill tank with new scripps water. Let it run for an hour or two. Move corals / fish back to tank.
There's no need IMO to remove all your fish and corals. That's just asking to add more stress to a stressful situation for them. you can do the same thing with leaving a few inches of water in the tank. Corals and fish can both be out of water for a little bit of time.

[H4Rk3R]

Im planning to do daily 40g water changes... the leathers and kenyas are starting to look a lot better... all my fish are eating normally and behaving just as they did before...

I think Jessy is right about moving all my fish and corals... It'd be extra stress that they dont need... =/...

[CBlanks]

Great job on the rebound! There is nothing more aggravating in reef keeping than a power outage or equipment malfunction.

I always had good luck with my marineland submersible heater (http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2754055). The glass is surrounded in plastic so even if the unit shatters it wont explode into your tank.

[bkh_sd]

I disagree. A little bit of stress on the corals and fish is well worth it compared to what could have been released in the water from the exploded heater.

I'm a big fan of taking a little risk with stress over a much bigger risk that could lose everything...

He couldn't do that type of change with man made salt, just scripps, and since he was already using scripps it is an easy acclimation on the fish /corals. so Just my two cents.

haha then again we all should have quarantine tanks as a backup :P
Edit/Delete Message


There's no need IMO to remove all your fish and corals. That's just asking to add more stress to a stressful situation for them. you can do the same thing with leaving a few inches of water in the tank. Corals and fish can both be out of water for a little bit of time.

[bkh_sd]

Yeah I use the Stealth brand ones for the same reason. Plastic on the outside :)


Great job on the rebound! There is nothing more aggravating in reef keeping than a power outage or equipment malfunction.

I always had good luck with my marineland submersible heater (http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2754055). The glass is surrounded in plastic so even if the unit shatters it wont explode into your tank.

[bkh_sd]

These guys survive 24-48 hour trips in a package across the world and are moved several times between middle man before and after to get to the store which sells them pretty quickly usually.

They are a little sturdier than most would like to believe :) (Assuming we've done our part to put them in our tanks properly).

Moving my tanks over 10 times through the years to new locations (not to mention moving around within the apartment/house has only resulted in 1 casualty. And that's a lot more stressful then just temporarily moving to another tank.

Anyway hope everything goes well and survives!



I think Jessy is right about moving all my fish and corals... It'd be extra stress that they dont need... =/...

[H4Rk3R]

ya you are right about them being able to handle it and probably more sturdier than most would believe... but iono about you, but i hate moving... im sure they do too... =P... btw... thanks for the well wishes... :D

[Techknowledgy]

Water changes only. Moving anything adds more stress, especially to fish.

[vicfish]

post pics of the tank