Heater Broke, Clownfish dying

[xOhSugar]

I have a 10g Reeftank with two clownfish and a Goby. Everything has been running great for the past 5 months, until two days ago when I saw my heater break open in my tank. It was a Marineland Stealth Pro heater. There was a loud pop, flash of light, and the surface area of my tank filled up with smoke. It was plugged into a GFCI so I have no idea what happened.

 

I unplugged everything and took it out to discover that the heater split open and had some of its insides now exposed to my tank. I've done two 20% water changes and a 50% water change in the past 3 days. I run a Rio nano skimmer, and everything in it smells like battery acid. That's what my tank smelled like too before the WCs.

 

One day after the accident, my clownfish stopped swimming around and are nearly laying on the sandbed. One always stays upright while the other rests vertically in the glass corner. They appear to be scared out of their minds, or severely panicked, and weak. They won't eat. The Goby won't eat either.

 

I heard the nutrient cycle could be out of balance, so I bought Biozyme, Microbe Lift Aquatic Stress Reliever, Special Blend, and Nite Out II. I think I added some Melafix before they were this sick but I don't think that could be it. After testing my water all levels of everything are good. My new heater (A Tetra something) keeps the water at 76-78 degrees.

 

Does anyone know how to save my fish??!

[Aquanist]

If it really "exploded" this could be because of pressure shock. Just try to keep things normal as possible and give them time. Two weeks should show if they're going to make it.

[nor_cal_nano]

Take them out asap?

[d'Espresso]

save them quick

[xOhSugar]

Take them out asap?

 

I don't have anywhere to put them besides a 5g bucket. If it's pressure shock won't that not matter and stress them out even more anyway

[nor_cal_nano]

####. Anything would be better than swimming in water that smells like battery acid, yeah? If you really want to keep them in there I'd suggest a water change much bigger than 50%.

[knives2886]

make a new sw batch in that 5gal for your fish to swim in introduce them to the water. let them recover in there while you do a 100% waterchange in your tank and clean it out. make sure no glass shards are in the sand too. then introduce thme back to the tank with new water.

[seldin]

Actually, the heater that you had explode, is one of the heaters I heard very good things about...

 

As for a heater exploding, I had this happen to me, and found out it is very common. First thing, is to make sure that you remove the heater ( unplugged), etc. Then, make sure you have another heater so that the temperature remains stable. As mentioned, do a large water change.

 

From what was told to me, heaters now a days, should not poison a tank with mercury, etc. Clown fish, are very resilient, and they usually are the first to recover from the disasters that reef keepers have in glass boxes.

 

So depending on where you are in this cycle. Just create a new 5 gallon bucket of water and salt. Make sure a pump and heater in it and take out the clown fish. If he is not hurt seriously, he can recover in the bucket with no problems.

 

Not sure if you have other livestock, corals, etc. I know on my 55 reef when this occurred, it can take some corals to recover fast and other corals can die and some take months to recover. All over the spectrum, just depends on each animal.

 

Sorry to hear for your loss. I have been through this, and it sucks...

 

Good luck,

 

- Larry

[GokesReef]

Seldin, you either need to cut back on the commas or figure out how to use them properly

 

Guess I'll be replacing my heater soon. Been using a stealth for almost a year now, don't really want to risk this.. not that it's new info, but I had hoped it would stop happening

[seldin]

.. you either need to cut back on the commas or figure out how to use them properly..

 

Having written "in the past" 2 best selling computer books, 2 certification exams as well as a past writer for Futures magazine, I will let my editor know.... lol

[Pickle010]

Seldin, you either need to cut back on the commas or figure out how to use them properly

 

Guess I'll be replacing my heater soon. Been using a stealth for almost a year now, don't really want to risk this.. not that it's new info, but I had hoped it would stop happening

 

 

I bet we see a lot more of these threads.

 

If you have the marineland stealth heater with the red dial knob at the top - it is a time bomb!!!

 

 

Sorry about your fish OP... I had this happen in a fry tank full of 3 day old GSM's and some of them actually survived the blast. Water changes are your friend.

[ignatz]

Have you checked the pH? If the water smells like acid, it follows that you likely have a low pH. Might want to check the Alk while you're at it.

[seldin]

I think that if the water smells bad, it could be the smell of dying animals. I would try to relocate the animals or just do a large water change.

 

As far as the heater, if you are concerned, you can use what is called a Poly Filter. This pad is know for removing metals, phosphates,etc. Works awesome.

 

As far as the heater exploding, this is a common occurrence and as long as you did not fry the fish, with a temperature change, and did a large water change, if you caught the problem early enough, you have a good shot at having the fish recover. Clownfish are known to be very hardy.

 

Not sure, but I would suggest checking your parms. Just in case, you don't want to go through a cycle.

[nanoty]

You must have a good editor.

[Coastie]

You could have nuked your cleaning crew and the die off is causing an ammonia spike? I wouldn't drop the clowns straight into a freshly mixed bucket of water. The fresh salt could burn their gills (from what I was told). Did you ever test your water? What are the parameters?

[1fishmonger]

Get your fish into someone else's tank while you fix yours... You probably have a die off of almost everything in your tank and will get spikes from here out until it's stable.

[GokesReef]

Having written "in the past" 2 best selling computer books, 2 certification exams as well as a past writer for Futures magazine, I will let my editor know.... lol

 

Maybe you should have your editor check you posts, then, as you used them in mostly wrong places. Your sentence structure and grammar also leave much to be desired... You've written a past writer for Futures? That makes no sense.

 

Not trying to make a flame war.. just sayin. Don't brag about being a writer if you're bad at grammar.

 

And yeah, Pickle, I agree. They come up from time to time, I'm surprised Marineland hasn't said or done anything about it. It doesn't seem to be a secret amongst the hobbyists.

 

I hope everything turns out well here, I'll be following to see OP's progress...

[xOhSugar]

As far as the heater, if you are concerned, you can use what is called a Poly Filter. This pad is know for removing metals, phosphates,etc. Works awesome.

 

Not sure, but I would suggest checking your parms. Just in case, you don't want to go through a cycle.

 

Okay just to clear things up:

I've been checking Params, everything is good. There's no ammonia, no spikes in nitrates or nitrites, alkalinity is okay, etc. etc. I might look into the poly filter anyway in case anything weird might've leaked that normal tests don't catch

And I've been using cycling components anyway (listed in first post)

 

The water doesn't smell bad anymore. It's just what comes out of the skimmer

 

But Thanks Larry I'll take them out anyway and see what happens

[crooks]

If any of you guys dont want your old stealth heaters, I want them,,,,

[dylan1464]

next time go with a Jager

[gerbilbox]

According to some folks at ReefCentral, a group of Stealth Pro heaters with the manufacturing lot number 01H31 (and maybe others) were defective and exploding. It's printed on the side of the heater somewhere. Apparently, Marineland was also paying some people the cost of lost equipment and livestock. If I were you, keep the heater so you can get any lot or serial number off of it, take photos of the damage, and call Marineland and give them hell until they do something about it.

[tako]

next time go with a Jager

 

My Jager lasted a couple weeks before it leaked. I only caught it from the hissing noise it was making before it was ready to explode. It's just like Marineland, only worse because their closest customer service location is in Canada.

 

My advice is just keep a close eye on any brand of heater, because they all have horror stories.

[gerbilbox]

My Jager lasted a couple weeks before it leaked. I only caught it from the hissing noise it was making before it was ready to explode. It's just like Marineland, only worse because their closest customer service location is in Canada.

 

My advice is just keep a close eye on any brand of heater, because they all have horror stories.

 

Just saying that any brand is susceptible is misleading. It's unreasonable to expect any company to have a perfect product record, but I do expect to see some brands that are better (or less worse) than others. Unfortunately, with a niche market like aquarium heaters there isn't broad enough interest for consumer groups to monitor bad products in a comprehensive way and inform us which brands are worse off than others. Judging just by people self-reporting their problems, which isn't the most accurate way to judge, it seems that Jager is a popular brand with the fewest complaints, the recent crop of Stealth Pros have been plagued with problems although there were far fewer problems in years past, and Hydor Theos generally work but it's not unusual for the temperature dial to be wild off. From what I've read I feel "good enough" to be comfortable with my Jager. I do agree that it's sound advice to just keep an eye out on the heater regardless.

[GokesReef]

According to some folks at ReefCentral, a group of Stealth Pro heaters with the manufacturing lot number 01H31 (and maybe others) were defective and exploding. It's printed on the side of the heater somewhere. Apparently, Marineland was also paying some people the cost of lost equipment and livestock. If I were you, keep the heater so you can get any lot or serial number off of it, take photos of the damage, and call Marineland and give them hell until they do something about it.

 

 

I'd like to delve further into this... Where to check for the lot number would be a good start. Also, some confirmation if this is the only lot that seems to be affected, when it was manufactured, etc..

[entendu]

I use a Hydor Theo 100W heater. It has done the trick for me. Temp stays consistent and is made from "shatter-proof glass" <--- whatever that means. lol.