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Heater failure = Gutted!

Wallace

Member
Joined
7 Mar 2012
Messages
308
Location
Bramley, Surrey
I've just moved house last weekend, and I've gone back over to my old house today to sort out my tanks and get them moved before handing the keys back this Friday. As soon as I walked into the house I was hit by a nasty rotten water smell, and as soon as I looked into my Jewel Vision 180 in the lounge I knew what the problem was, the damned heater had bust and gone mentally hot!

The glass was red hot to touch and the water itself was as hot as a freshly boiled kettle! The water was green, all the plants in there had gone brown and died, and what was most upsetting was the fact that my 2 Angels and 10 Harlequin Rasboras had literally boiled to their deaths! :eek:(

Everything was fine on Sunday when I was last over at the other house, any idea what could of caused the heater to malfunction? At first I thought maybe a power cut / surge or something, but the other 5 tanks were all fine and dandy and all timers etc all showing correct times.

I don't even think gutted covers it.

Adam
 
They can just fail like that unfortunately...if the thermostat sticks, then it just stays on.
 
these things happen dude. ash huh, lived in ash vale for a couple of years...
 
Really sorry to hear that, circumstances have conspired against you and the fish and it's really bad luck :(
 
That's really crap mate, so sorry to hear of your losses.I know I would be so upset if this happened to me.
 
Sorry to hear this. I'm amazed that this can still happen these days. You'd think by now heaters would have some kind of thermal fuse or cut out as a fail safe.
 
I was told, years ago, that "cheaper" heaters that use a bimetallic strip to switch tend to fail to always on (contacts welded) and that more expenive electronic heaters tend to fail to always off (electronics fail). How you tell nowadays which is which I don't know.

Some heaters I have seen are fitted with thermal overload fuses but the ones I saw were rated 120C, which I assume is to kill the heater if it jams on and is not in a tank. Mind you the lowest thermal fuse I can find is 73C, still way to high to protect your tank.

Some of the heaters available, eg TMC V2Therm indicate that they have a thermal cut off in case of failure, maybe that is the way to go in the future. Mind you it appears the thermal cut out is in case of dry running rather than over temperature in water.
 
Hi all,
I'm amazed that this can still happen these days. You'd think by now heaters would have some kind of thermal fuse or cut out as a fail safe.......TMC V2Therm indicate that they have a thermal cut off in case of failure, maybe that is the way to go in the future. Mind you it appears the thermal cut out is in case of dry running rather than over temperature in water.
It does seem absolutely crazy. I try running 2 under-sized heaters set at about 5oC difference (22oC and 27oC ish), but there are still times when one sticks on and potentially boils your stock, particularly in small tanks.

cheers Darrel
 
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