Heater exploded! (1 Viewer)

[mittens]

I was anticipating a shipment of baby clowns from liveaquaria this morning and prepared a bucket to acclimate and hold them until I got home from work. Well, my almost brand new Aqueon 50watt heater exploded and started burning in the water! I was lucky I was sitting right next to the bucket and heard the pop, and was able to smell burning and was immediately able to remove the plug from the power strip. It seems that the surge protector and other plugs were not affected but I unplugged the entire surge protector from the outlet just to be sure the building didn’t burn down in the middle of the night. Long story short, heater beware and pay more for a quality heater and replace regularly. Geez..

 

[Tangs]

Ya sorry to hear that Mittens. I buy cheapos all the time. They last for many years and just die cus of age. I used to crack the glass on the odd one as well but that was my doing. Good luck with your new heaters.

 

[mittens]

I use titanium in my actual displays but have been using aqueons for fish qt. After this no more petco heaters, even for small temporary things like this.

 

[Cody]

Was it plugged into a GFCI outlet?

 

[Tangs]

I am just glad most if not all are water tight now. I can remember having heaters accidently submerged. And seeing water in them. Yikesss

 

[mittens]

Was it plugged into a GFCI outlet?

It was plugged into a surge protector/power strip

 

[soymilk]

https://www.amazon.com/ELEGRP-Single-Adapter-Grounded-3-Prong/dp/B096WTSVK3/

i wonder if this is worth getting for my qt tank

 

[mittens]

All that brown stuff is burnt whatever from a 50watt heater that exploded in 4 gal of water for 5 seconds…..

 

[SCUBAFreaky]

Anything more about the baby clowns?? Curious how many and what kind...

 

[Erin]

https://www.amazon.com/ELEGRP-Single-Adapter-Grounded-3-Prong/dp/B096WTSVK3/

i wonder if this is worth getting for my qt tank

Absolutely use a plug (or plugs) like this if you don't have hard wired GFCI outlets!

 

[Reefahholic]

Eheim Jager

EHEIM Jager Thermostat Aquarium Heater, 75-watt - Chewy.com

Buy Eheim Jager Thermostat Aquarium Heater, 75-watt at Chewy.com. FREE shipping and the BEST customer service!

www.chewy.com

 

[foos]

GFCI would not have tripped since that was a two wire heater so there was no path to ground. If someone panic grabbed that out of the water without a GFCI there is a decent chance it would be the last thing they did. However, if someone panic grabbed it with it plugged into a GFCI They would get a nasty shock and almost certainly live to regret doing that.

Surge protector would have done nothing and will still be fine since current is not likely to have gotten high enough to damage it. Surge protectors use metal-oxide varistor's in them. These only protect against voltage spikes from things like lightning, animals shorting high voltage across a transformer, or a transformer failing. When voltage rises the resistance in them falls and they short that damaging voltage to ground so your stuff does not get fried.

 

[soymilk]

is there anything out there to prevent something like this from happening?

I assume the heater leaked water and they popping noise was from the steam pressurising the heater body. I actually use the same family of heaters on my QT tanks.

 

[mittens]

Eheim Jager

EHEIM Jager Thermostat Aquarium Heater, 75-watt - Chewy.com

Buy Eheim Jager Thermostat Aquarium Heater, 75-watt at Chewy.com. FREE shipping and the BEST customer service!

www.chewy.com

I quit those a long time ago. I found them way way off. Only one I have is to heat water fast when mixing salt.

 

[mittens]

Anything more about the baby clowns?? Curious how many and what kind...

They didn’t make it to me yesterday. Major delay in Memphis so they didn’t even get to the fedex hub in Houston. The package just made it to the dispersing facility this morning and I’m hoping they’ll make it to me today sooner than later… I had the pleasure of repacking another bucket of water, NEW 50watt Aqueon heater , air stone and prime again this morning. Idk what heater to use at this point (it’s a 5gal body of water that I need to heat for less than 8 hrs within a 24hr window). Anyone have a heater suggestion for this kind of situation? I’ve been in touch with liveaquaria since yesterday and explained the fedex situation and they’ve been helpful and understanding about the situation. They said they would probably extend the 7day guarantee should my 4 baby spotcintus clowns (I love these guys ) get to me alive, but compromised.

 

[Reefahholic]

I quit those a long time ago. I found them way way off. Only one I have is to heat water fast when mixing salt.

Gotta calibrate ‘em.

 

[RR-MAN]

I quit those a long time ago. I found them way way off. Only one I have is to heat water fast when mixing salt.

Do you calibrate? You can use a controller or a glass aquarium thermometer to calibrate the heater once you unbox.

I have using nothing but Eheim Jager for the past 15 years. Also, some of us user the same heater for years. I switch every 2 years regardless of the condition. It's one of the cheapest equipment in a reef tank.

 

[mittens]

I don’t calibrate. I just stuck to heaters that consistently deviated +/- 1 degree from their preset internal temperature. Aqueon for qt and cobalt and finnex for dt’s have always worked for me. I’ve also gone several years using all of those above,.. maybe I’ve just been lucky this entire time. Having said all that, I use Ranco’s and then apex to control temp for dt.. so yea triple redundancy. First exploded heater EVER though.

 

[SCUBAFreaky]

They didn’t make it to me yesterday. Major delay in Memphis so they didn’t even get to the fedex hub in Houston. The package just made it to the dispersing facility this morning and I’m hoping they’ll make it to me today sooner than later… I had the pleasure of repacking another bucket of water, NEW 50watt Aqueon heater , air stone and prime again this morning. Idk what heater to use at this point (it’s a 5gal body of water that I need to heat for less than 8 hrs within a 24hr window). Anyone have a heater suggestion for this kind of situation? I’ve been in touch with liveaquaria since yesterday and explained the fedex situation and they’ve been helpful and understanding about the situation. They said they would probably extend the 7day guarantee should my 4 baby spotcintus clowns (I love these guys ) get to me alive, but compromised.

Hopefully they make it to you soon today!...and all alive. Fingers crossed!! I've never known anyone to keep these before and I guess this is the first I've heard of them. It's possible I may have mistaken this variety for Clarkii in the past. They look like they're a lot of fun to have though based on some google searching. Looking forward to maybe seeing some pics once they're all settled.

 

[soymilk]

fingers crossed for the clownies.

I think I saw the same blow on the 50w heater on amazon. I wonder if its more prone to the 50w, than the 100w or 200w. Petco has them on sale for $15 for the 100w, and $17 for the 200w. Coupled up with the 15% off 50+ curbside pick up makes pretty decent for a qt tank heater. But only if they don't blow up.

Ive had two ehiem jager ones get stuck on and they weren't even a year old yet. So im staying away from those. Plus they are huge.