In the case of a broken heater

in the case of a broken heater "DO NOT PUT HANDS IN TANK
IN CASE OF FATAL ELECTRIC SHOCK" turn off heater at plug
and unplug and remove heater if you are stuck and don't
carry a spare heater all you need a medium drinks bottle
filled with hot water from the tap or a kettle boiled and left
to cool a few minutes float plastic drinks bottle in tank if
it to hot remove bottle then when it cools replace bottle
when it cools replace heater at the nearest possible chance
or try to carry a spare hope this helps

or, if your stat stops working and your tank overheats as mine did on Sunday night......
My instictive reaction was to pull the heater from the water. Luckily I stopped myself and just switched all the power off as mentioned above.
What I did was remove a couple of buckets of water and replace them with cool water which brought the temp down a few degrees. I then became concerned about shocking the fish so I left the tank with no heat for several hours to allow it to cool gradually. I also put in an air pump to raise the oxygen levels in the water. Hot water doesn't hold the oxygen as well so its important to add the extra air.
Unfortunately I wasn't aware of the temp increase until it was too late for 6 of my sterbai corys
The heater has now been replaced with a Fluval E series and I plan on replacing all my tank heaters with these over time

Sorry to hear of your problems Enigma, It's happened to me, and all of us at some time I suppose. I don't know why they can't make heaters "fail safe" ie always shut down. In my experience fish can survive better at lower temperatures.

sorry to hear about this. can i ask how much the temp got to before you realised? i have fluval e series heaters in two of my tanks and the display gives you instant piece of mind that the temp is sitting right.

NedtheDog wrote:Sorry to hear of your problems Enigma, It's happened to me, and all of us at some time I suppose. I don't know why they can't make heaters "fail safe" ie always shut down. In my experience fish can survive better at lower temperatures.

That would be so much better I agree

k3vinjam3s wrote:sorry to hear about this. can i ask how much the temp got to before you realised? i have fluval e series heaters in two of my tanks and the display gives you instant piece of mind that the temp is sitting right.

I only realised because I was on my way to bed and went to put the lights out and spotted a dead cory, and then another, and once i saw the 3rd i knew something was badly wrong. I opened the lid to fish the bodies out and the heat hit me. It was an unbelievable 38.5 degrees C...100.4F. Quite honestly I am amazed anything survived at all.
My glass thermometer is now useless as the fluid split and nothing i do will get it back together and the stick on thermometer which was the first thing i looked at wasn't showing a problem as the heat was totally off the scale.
I have positioned the e series heater so that I can see the display colour from just about any angle in the room and it was worth the price just for the piece of mind.