Disaster

[yukondog]

Had a heater fail last night in my F-1 Viejita tank, temp was almost 100, male/female breeders dead, 12 fry dead. I just hope some of the fry I pulled will give me some females, I have some males from another batch but no females. It's amazing how just the littlest thing can become a game changer, if was one of the Hongsloi tanks it wouldn't be so bad as have more than enough of them to be able to recover, but not the Viejita's.

 

[Ben Rhau]

Oh man, I’m so sorry. That is tough. I just put all of my tanks on temperature controllers for this reason. Seems like overkill unless you’ve had this happen before (which I have). Brutal.

 

[yukondog]

This was a fixed temp. heater, 200 watt 30 gal. tall. was thinking the t-stat went bad and just stayed on when it should have cut off and just cooked the fish.

 

[anewbie]

A lot of folks use inkbirds which has its own thermostat - it will basically turn off the power to the heater if the temp gets too warm. Kind of pricey but given the high rate of heater failures maybe worth it. The other way a lot of heaters fail is current leak so you could also ground the tank. Of course this won't help if it simply fails to function but for even more $$$$$ you can get an inkbird that will trigger an alarm (via phone) if temp is out of range.

In my QT pail i had a small heater failed - water went up to 105 since the heater failed to turn off.

 

[Mike Wise]

I really hate aquarium heaters. I am lucky. I have a fish room and heat the room; separate thermostat for the room on my home heating system. It is wonderful on a cold winter day to go down and play in 77°F/25°C warmth.