:'( heater disaster

[oenology]

   I noticed my beatiful tropheus colony acting very strangely - bouncing off the glass, staying low, not eating... I'd just changed the water so I was wondering if Aylmer had upped the chlorine levels or something... Then I noticed the temperature - oh my god! they were almost at 100F or 37C. One died soon after I figured out what was going on. Two look like they are not going to make it. Hopefull the rest will survive. The heater was a rena cal 200W "submersible" set at 80F. I had bought it new 4 months ago. I'd noticed some rust formation on the heating cables and that should have set the alarm bells ringing but it didn't. Stupid. Tragic. Dumb.

[charlie]

So sorry to hear about this, i shared a similar faith recently with a brand new Jager heater which failed to shut off & raised the temp to 96 degrees , I only discovered this after returning home from work & was about to replant a stem plant when i felt the warmth of the water( this heater was only in the tank for 24 hrs) , i lost a couple of Gouramis & damaged a couple of plants.
Hope the rest of the fish do well.
Regards

[328iGuy]

NOOOOOOOOOO not my Tropheus.... 

You may need to throw in the metro I gave you as well for stress, hopefully they don't stress out and get bloat, yikes! Not good...

Keep us updated!

[Bob]

Had this happen many years ago. I'm surprised that there isn't a commerical overtemp product available for aquariums. TC in the tank to a control unit you plug the heater into, turns off power to heater if tank gets to say 85 degrees. Shouldn't be too expensive to make these days. Would think a mass produced commerical version could sell for roughly the same price as a heater. Might take a look at what it would take to make one, must be something out there that would work with a few mods.

[darkdep]

They DO make external thermostats...their primary purpose is to manage tanks where you have multiple heaters.  You set the heaters all to maximum and then plug them into the thermal monitor, which turns them all on when needed and otherwise turns them all off. 

[pegasus]

Sad to hear about your lost.
Loosing fish to sickness is natural, but loosing them because of a heather is just not fair.

[RoxyDog]

oh no!  so sorry to hear about this.   

[oenology]

Update: No more have died but they aren't eating yet. Fingers crossed that they will heal themselves from this near boiling.

[darkdep]

Good luck Jenn...

[repeej]

Bloody hell....I have a Rena Cal 300W with the same rust on the inside.  I better keep a close eye on this unit so as not to run into the same problem with it not shutting off.

[oenology]

Hallayouyah! The last fish that stopped eating finally ate today! So I think she(?) is going to make it. Yah! "only" one death from this heater disaster!

[dannypd]

Hallayouyah! The last fish that stopped eating finally ate today! So I think she(?) is going to make it. Yah! "only" one death from this heater disaster!

technically, only one fish "cooked" from this disaster...all about point of view

I have some heaters I do not trust anymore, on their LOWEST setting, my tank quickly rises to 30 celcius.  They are 2x200W rena (I believe) submersable heaters.  No rust at all.  Because of their temperment (hehe), I bury them in the sand and I set them on a timer every 30minutes-2hours, depending on the temp outside.  That usually keeps them in check and the natural heat-loss to my house keeps things from getting too hot.  This is on a 60ish gallon tank, so no issues with "major" fluctuations.

[dannypd]

Had this happen many years ago. I'm surprised that there isn't a commerical overtemp product available for aquariums. TC in the tank to a control unit you plug the heater into, turns off power to heater if tank gets to say 85 degrees. Shouldn't be too expensive to make these days. Would think a mass produced commerical version could sell for roughly the same price as a heater. Might take a look at what it would take to make one, must be something out there that would work with a few mods.

THANK YOU BOB!

I have an external thermostat reader that I'm quickly going to take about today or tomorrow!

It has a high-temp warning and a low-temp warning!!  When each of these go off, a double warning beep for too low, a tripple beep for too high.  I see myself hacking an IC very soon.  I do not believe it'll be hard to simply hardwire a transister type switch to the "low temp" warning and have it turn off after 1800000 clockcycles, or whatever computes to 30 minutes.  I could ignore the high temp completely, but I'll wire anything one to KILL the heaters (just in case my chip hack fails), and KILL the lights.

I will post results if people want?

[oenology]

If you figure out how to do it easily (warnings for low temp and shut offs for high temps) then I'd love a demo on how to do it or better yet you coming by and fixing up all 30 or so of my heaters

[mseguin]

I think is what you would be talking about?
http://www.bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=34749&category_id=1615&pcid1=3231

[dannypd]

I think is what you would be talking about?
http://www.bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=34749&category_id=1615&pcid1=3231

mine was cheaper   it came "free" with my 404 filter.

I'm still trying to figure out how I'm gonna make them go on/off.  The IC I was going to use requires a huge heatsink, and thus will create a lot of heat/waste energy. 

I think I am going to take apart a digital light timer (link: http://www.canadiantire.ca/assortments/product_detail.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=1408474396669917&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474396670271&bmUID=1149439019764&PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524442459563&assortment=primary&fromSearch=true) and connect the low temp warning directly to the "ON" button.  With this, I can force it to turn off after 30 minutes with the programming feature somehow.  My only problem will be the overheat warning...I cant trust the button, so maybe I'll have it trip ANOTHER timer that would be on 24/7 unless it overheated... 

In theory, this should take 20 minutes to setup, in reality, I'll work on it by next month...have a few other projects that MUST be done asap.