Blydi heater mun!

[TaffyFish]

Woke this morning to find the 200W heater on my 40g had stuck on overnight and raised the water temp to over 36oC. This was too high for the breeding trio of ocellatus plus spare male, 4 cyp fry which were growing on and 1 of the 3 syno petricola. One of the ocellatus females had also just spawned 8-10 fry.

2 syno petricola and a 1" ancistrus survived the ordeal, helped by cooling from a fan, an airstone and a quick 10% water change with cold water.

The synos are out and about now, the temp is a normal 26oC but the tank looks very devoid of life with 8 empty shells on the sand.

Time to look into thermostats with alarms. Sad day.

 

[Lotus]

Sorry to hear about that

I wish when heaters died they would at least have the decency to shut down and not take anyone with them.

 

[TurbineSurgeon]

Bummer, Taffy....

If you don't mind, what brand was the heater so I know to avoid a similar fate.

 

[TaffyFish]

Thanks guys, it was a Hagen Tronic as you asked but actually I decided against naming the brand in my first post as I don't think they're any better or worse than others. In fact I replaced it with another Hagen Tronic which should indicate that I don't blame the manufacturer really, these things fail and I failed to prepare for that. If it had failed during the day I would have noticed the problem but as it failed overnight.......you're right Lotus, much better that they fail by switching off than by sticking on.

I know that Ebo Jagers are highly regarded in NA, have never seen them available here. As I said above I'll be looking more closely at thermostats with alarms in the near future.

 

[Purple]

A sad day indeed.

Came across this piece that would suggest this happens more than you'd think...........

One shop told us: “With Hagen Tronics, I’d say it was about 1 in 20, with most of those failing within the first few months.
“Interpet Deltatherms are rarely a problem, although we don’t sell many. Quite a few Interpet Thermofilters refuse to heat up.”
Dominic Price, of Maidenhead Aquatics in Hereford, said that their return rate was also around the 1 in 20 mark. He said: “Most of the heaters we sell are Hagen Tronics and come as part of a kit. Probably about 5% of these get brought back, mainly because they’ve stuck on.”

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/show_article.php?article_id=127

As I have 6 heaters at home working at the moment, the odds of this happening to me are significantly high. I shall have to spend some time looking into putting an internal thermometer into the tanks that would cut the power to the heater if it goes over 90F. Some heaters have a separate thermometer anyway so a bit of adaption shouldn't be over complicated.

 

[TaffyFish]

Interesting, all you'd get from Hagen is a replacement heater though, with another 1 in 20 chance of failing. Their terms and conditions specifically state that they would not be held responsible for any "animate matter" lost as a result of failure.

Reading a bit more widely I suspect I was correct not to slam Hagen. The tronic is the second best selling heater so you'd expect quite a few horror stories of failures. I think we expect quite a lot from a relatively cheap piece of kit, maybe I would be happy to spend more for belt and braces.

That thermometer sounds like a good idea, have you seen one or are you thinking about making one? Just a thermo switch at the end of the day. Has a big advantage over one that just sounds an alarm...fat load of use if we're out.