Heater Broke

[Bloo]

This is the first time ever that this has happened to me. I did a water change a couple of days ago and forgot to switch the heater off. I did a 50% water change and fiddled with the plants (while tank was half empty with heater exposed) but I didn't realise it at the time.

Tonight I happen to hear this faint, odd, unusual noise. Look through the tank at the pipe work, but can't see anything. Then I notice that the Visitherm's heater indication looks completely "blown" and you can't actually read the temperature. Then I see that the entire heater is filled with water (you can see gunk floating around in it !!) and that's what was making the noise

Luckily I recently bought a spare 150W Visitherm on eBay at a bargain price of £7 so can put the spare one in.

So just a reminder never ever to forget switching the heater off !

 

[LoachLover]

Never a good thing to leave it on, but we all have our moments when we forget. I had one in my beggining fish keeping day, burned a line on the carpet

 

[SamUK]

your ok as you had the spare heater and i think everyone should have atleast one spare.

they can be bought all the time for about £9 max on ebay and thats for the 300W ones that i use and there brand new.

 

[LoachLover]

Not really sure at all, but is that about $18?

 

[Bloo]

Roughly $16 for the one Sam's talking about, but Visitherms are usually around £25 ($43 - and that's why I broke ! ). But a spare doesn't have to be expensive. Luckily I have a couple of spare 25W Visitherms as well. But the spare 150W replaces the broken one perfectly.

 

[SamUK]

what do you get for the extra money?


cant remember the make of mine, there not shatterproof i dont think but they keep the temp perfectly and havent broken down yet..


*touches wood*

 

[Bloo]

They come with a three year warrantee (unless you manage to break it yourself !! as I did) and I love the fact that you can easily adjust the temperature and see the red indicator go up or down as you manually turn the knob to adjust the temperature. But that's not saying that other less expensive heaters won't do the job exactly as well.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

hrmm, my heater never broke before and i leave it on during water change and the water drops below the line

 

[zelandonia]

It is a good idea to unplug all the electrical connections when doing water changes.

z.

 

[Bloo]

Quite right - and that's what I usually always do without fail. I have my plugs on an extention tower and then just unplug the one socket from the extention tower. I must be getting old (and forgetting)

 

[liz2]

Never a good thing to leave it on, but we all have our moments when we forget. I had one in my beggining fish keeping day, burned a line on the carpet

yes I got a line in my back room and the insurance company wouldnt let me have a new carpet!

 

[kramers]

Haven't had that problem either, yet. As for the Visitherm, yes it is a lot easier to set the temp using the indicator. It didn't cook any fish did it, Bloo?

 

[Bloo]

Thankfully not ! But it could have been absolute disaster seeing that the control blew and went like that for what must have been a good 36 hours !

 

[kramers]

Wow. Talk about being lucky.