Near disaster!

Mindy · Post by **Mindy** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 6:03 pm

Was doing my daily poo siphon in the zeb tank yesterday evening and immediately noticed the water was cold. The heater died. I don't know how long before it had died, but the water was room temperature. The light was still on so it "looked" like it was working. I grabbed the heater out of one of my other tanks that just has a few corys in it and stuck it in the zeb tank. It's not quite back up to temperature yet but getting there. Fingers crossed everyone makes it through it OK. There's quite a few babies in there and I'm hoping it didn't stress them too much.

When I took the heater out, there was water all inside the casing, around the heating elements and everything. It could have been so much worse!

chanettt · Post by **chanettt** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 7:07 pm

hope they are all fine. your story tells me how lucky i am to live in the hot weather country. still wish to get less humid.

Post by **TwoTankAmin** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 8:16 pm

Glad you caught it in time.

I would suggest to all zebra keepers that they use both multiple filters and heaters in their zebra tanks, especially where fry are involved.

McEve · Post by **McEve** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 8:44 pm

In my experience Zebras can deal with quite a lot regarding fluctuating temperature, but TTA's advice is good, keep two small heaters rather than one large. It might even induce a spawn ...

They are doing ok?

Mindy · Post by **Mindy** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 9:11 pm

So far they all seem fine... fingers crossed!

smithrc · Post by **smithrc** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 9:20 pm

eeek... glad its ok in the end...

we had the same sort of thing in our 350l comunity tank... except it was my fault as I didnt plug it back in after a water change

- it was unplugged for 3 days and the temp only fell to 24deg C. so not bad at all really.

our zeb tank has 2 filters but only one heater... might have to change that...

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 11:51 pm

Glad to hear that you caught it in time Mindy. Seeing that we are experiencing a bit of a heatwave at the moment everything should be ok, luckily it didn't happen in winter as the tank could have got quite cold. You should be ok though, just keep an eye on them for the next few days.

TTA's advice is sound, two smaller heaters is a good precaution to take as it is unlikely that both will fail at the same time. Also if one of them fails in the on position it will take longer to overheat the tank, luckily most failures happen in the off position. I have external digital themometers with an audible alarm function that would alert me if the max/min temperatures I programmed were exceeded. You can pick these up for about £15.

All my zebra tanks are heated with thermo filters, heater element in the bottom of the canister, and I have found them to be very reliable. My oldest one has been running in various community tanks for about seven years now. I do have a few tanks that are heated with conventional heater stats. In my experience the most reliable brand of heater I have used to date are made by Eheim Ebo-Jager, a bit pricey but they are very good quality. The best feature being the overheat safety shut off, the shatter proof glass comes in handy too. Heaters with an external thermostat, as commonly used by marine keepers, are also very reliable and are able to hold tempearures more accurately. The titanium range of heaters seem to be popular with the marine folk, I quite like the look of these and have heard a lot of good things about them. However I can't seem to find them in the UK though. As an alternative aquaone have a similar range but made out of stainless steel, I'm not sure about the reliability of these though as they are fairly new on the market I believe.

I strongly advise investing in good quality heaters.

Regards.

Adam

PS Also don't forget those heater guards, these are nice and cheap.

Mindy · Post by **Mindy** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:49 am

Thanks for the advice Adam. As it happens, the only heater I had that I could put in there was a smaller one. So I will get another and it'll be good to go.

Happy to report that after all this time, there have still be no casualties as a result of the heater crash. Phew!

McEve · Post by **McEve** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 2:46 pm

Adam wrote:
All my zebra tanks are heated with thermo filters, heater element in the bottom of the canister, and I have found them to be very reliable.

I have these too, in Eheim Pro. II 2128 termofilter. a week ago the digital thermostat gave up. Woke up with a tank that had 40C water in it. Lost the entire group.

Mindy · Post by **Mindy** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 4:42 pm

Oh my word! That's terrible! I'm so sorry to hear that!

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 2:13 pm

Oh my good god, I'm really sorry to hear about this tragedy McEve,

I too use the Eheim Pro 2128's on all my zebra tanks.

Maybe I have just been lucky so far.

As a safeguard I am looking into some other options at the moment.

Once again I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of the zebras.

Regards.

Adam

McEve · Post by **McEve** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 7:42 pm

thanks both. it was no fun picking them out one after the other I can assure you

I have turned off the buildt in heater on the three i have and gone back to using regular heaters. I don't want to experience this again.

bonsai · Post by **bonsai** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 8:01 pm

Good idea to use the other heater. and I'm really sorry about the little mites

hara · Post by **hara** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 8:48 pm

Last year my heater went broken and heat and heat, luckily i noticed that when i got back home. About 20 fry lost and one survive, luckily adult were fine - now i had split fishes in 2 tanks.

Stevie.K · Post by **Stevie.K** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 2:09 pm

So sorry to hear of your tragic loss McEve

I would be happy to donate you a couple of fry to help you get a group back together, to thank you for all your help that has got me this far