rackfokus Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 Last night around 1am, there was a flash of light from my AP24 and a loud explosion. It sounded like someone dropped a cherry bomb in the back. My first thought was oh sh*t there is going to be a huge leak any second. Anyway after ripping the powerstrip out of the wall I discovered the heater had gone kaboom. It was strong enough that it made the canopy jump, and blew a maxijet open. I'm just happy that the fish seem to have recovered from the depth charge and the glass held. Scared the bejeezus out of me, but check out the shrapnel pics. Link to comment
EvMiBo Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 Wow that's crazy, who's it made by? Link to comment
Diatome Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 I had one that looked like that after a Jack Dempsey got hold of it. Is it me or was there a large number of issues this past weekend? Link to comment
geekreef_05 Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 wow, am I seeing things or is the glass casing still in-tact? Thats totally nuts, Im glad your tank survived. Talk about a scary situation. Any idea on how/why this happened? Link to comment
StevieT Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 did you have a powersurge, that is crazy, I also noticed that the glass is still intact Link to comment
Whacked Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 Oh wow! Thats a trip how the glass survived intact. Like it blew off instead of blown up. What was the heater manufacturer? I'd do a W/C and vac the heater area, make sure that if anything is missed it would get pumped out. Glad the livestock survived Link to comment
Nano-technology Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 woh! that would've left a streak in my shorts! that looks like a petco brand heater? my oscar at work tears everything apart... he shattered my heater with his jaws because he didn't like the look of it. as long as the fishys good and tank's not cracked. Link to comment
rackfokus Posted July 7, 2008 Author Share Posted July 7, 2008 It was a cheap POS from some company called Neptune, and like everything else in this hobby you get what you pay for. I bought a grenade when I should have bought a good heater. Again, I'm just happy the tank didn't fail. Link to comment
rackfokus Posted July 7, 2008 Author Share Posted July 7, 2008 The glass was fine. Apparently what happened was it melted down and blew the top cap off. The tank still smells like napalm in the morning. The funniest thing was right when it happened I was playing call of duty and creeping around a corner to snipe somebody. That added to the startling effect. Link to comment
geekreef_05 Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 wow, so weird. your so lucky that heater didnt explode into a million peices in your tank. Link to comment
Phixion Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 Most heaters are cheap in price, lol! Your best bet to deter against that is either a Visi-Therm Stealth heater (which is plastic cased) or a Titanium heater with external control. A good glass heater though is the Hydor Theo or a Ebo, though I've heard of many Ebo that have failed.... More than Theo's at least. Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 We had a titanium heater explode in one of the big tanks here. Thankfully it didn't blast through the sump wall. Killed a giant clam, a massive leather, a couple plates, some assorted SPS, etc. Link to comment
Laura6686 Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 We had a titanium heater explode in one of the big tanks here. Thankfully it didn't blast through the sump wall. Killed a giant clam, a massive leather, a couple plates, some assorted SPS, etc. Makes me glad that I put my stealth heater in the back chamber of my ap. Link to comment
chuckfullservice Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 I'm glad nothing got hurt and dam thats scary! I am so suprised nothing was electrocuted. I was just thinking though you should probably do some water changes , I think some of those heaters may use mercury in the thermostats . Link to comment
Martin_S Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 Im suprized that the galss tube is still in one peace! Link to comment
Jakesaw Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 4th of July is over man. Keep the fireshows til next year. Seriously though - that's crzy Link to comment
Alexraptor Posted July 7, 2008 Share Posted July 7, 2008 Visi-Therm stealth is definatley a lifesaver. I have a standard glass heater in my reef setup(havent gotten around to replacing it), but i was dealing with some issues of water temperature dropping in my 50 gal Oscar setup. The problem was that it was risky since oscars are large and powerful fish, so i found the Visi-Therm and bought one of those, and sure enough a day or two later i came into my aquarium room after a loud noise from my oscar and found the heater twisted around 45 degrees from its previous angle on the glass... Had it been a mere glass heater im positive it would have shattered. Link to comment
rackfokus Posted July 8, 2008 Author Share Posted July 8, 2008 I think I'm going to get a Stealth to replace it, unless anyone has any suggestions on something more bulletproof. I have a visatherm in a 55L that has been around since I worked at a pet shop in the late 90's so I'm sold on the reliability. The one that exploded was a cheapo that I bought at a Pet's Mart because it was all they had and I was tired of running around that day. Of course I told myself I would get a better one later, but it's pretty easy to not think about a heater when it's stuck in the back of an AP. For damage control, I just did a 5 gal water change, and threw in some Chemipure (you know the bag with little magical water cleaning elves in it) Everthing still looks ok so hopefully I got away with one. Link to comment
CorvetteJoe Posted July 8, 2008 Share Posted July 8, 2008 To add to the stats... how old were the heaters that some of you had that blew up? Just curious.. As cheap as they are, I wonder if it would just be a good idea to change them periodically regardless if they still work or not? like every 2 years or every year or something. Might be good insurance if there is a pattern. Link to comment
Mr. Fosi Posted July 8, 2008 Share Posted July 8, 2008 Not sure how old the titanium was. Link to comment
rackfokus Posted July 8, 2008 Author Share Posted July 8, 2008 The next day, everything looks ok Link to comment
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