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complete SPS bleaching due to shattered heater

chucelli

By chucelli,
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chucelli Reefer

chucelli

(edited)

Well, never thought this would do me in... especially after surviving 2 hurricanes.

I try to make sure I've thought about all possible disasters, but I never thought a heater would shatter without evidence of any physical trauma to the heater body. I have two heaters for redundency and both are located well away from anything that could fall on them and deep enough never to be out of water in any scenerio.

 

Woke up and saw this:

 

34o96bq.jpg

 

Fish are still a bit freaked out and hiding.

for reference, here's the last FTS from a few months ago.

 

2w6hqc9.jpg

 

got a nice little shock when I stuck my hand in the sump this morning. This was how I discovered the cause of this mass bleaching.

 

I have to say in the 20+ years I've been running aquariums, this is only the second heater failure I've experienced. Both were made by Marineland. The first was the plastic kind, touted to be more shatter resistent. Don't mean to point fingers, but my personal experience with Marineland seems to be echoed by many others in the hobby.

 

Anyways, figured I document this event in case this the last time anyone will see this tank!

 

The culprit has been identified and hopefully rectified. Fingers crossed, but if the corals make it out of this over-night change, it will take at least a few months.

 

 

-Robert

Edited by chucelli
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Wes Hatchling

Wes

Same thing just happened to a friend of mine in another club. Unbelievable how fast it goes in that direction, given how long it takes in the other... ...It's time for me to review some redundancy plans for myself and look at my weak links... So sorry to hear about it.

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Coral Hind Neptune Reefer

Coral Hind

Sorry to hear the bad news!! Did you have a ground probe and a GFCI in use? That combo would have caused the GFCI to trip as soon as water contacted the heating element. Having the heaters on seperate GFCI allows only one to trip.

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AlanM Oracle Reefer

AlanM

Sheesh, sorry Robert. Hope they aren't permanently bleached. Maybe I should put a natural gas heater on my tank instead of electric ones considering 2 crashes in 2 days in the club from heaters.

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basser9 Reefer

basser9

(edited)

I dont run heaters at all its pretty simple to keep your tank around 74 to 78 without them.

In the winter you can run a uv and mag to keep the temp up and you can put the uv on a temp

controller if you want more control.

If you have the room a aqua-c and a large mag can be run on a temp controller this combo

can add heat in the winter also.

Why waste the energy on a heater put those watts to good use.

Edited by basser9
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Coral Hind Neptune Reefer

Coral Hind

I dont run heaters at all its pretty simple to keep your tank around 74 to 78 without them.

In the winter you can run a uv and mag to keep the temp up and you can put the uv on a temp

controller if you want more control.

If you have the room a aqua-c and a large mag can be run on a temp controller this combo

can add heat in the winter also.

Why waste the energy on a heater put those watts to good use.

Both of those can fail and leak voltage just the same. Murphy's law is always out there with electrical stuff and our tanks.

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basser9 Reefer

basser9

(edited)

Thats why you run GFCI CIRCUITS the problems with heaters are always going to be there just get

read of them.

When they burst or crack they can poison everything.....just dont use them.....simple

Ever seen a post that my mag exploded or my uv blowup not really but heaters exploding and

nuking a tank happens regularly.

Edited by basser9
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sachabballi reef Oracle Reefer

sachabballi reef

Robert you are in good company. I was away for thanksgiving and when I came home I was greeted with the same sight...white sticks and no more huge RBTA and everything was just dead and a mess. My first reaction was to stick my hand in the tank and I let out a huge scream when I felt the shock...same issue...marineland heater in the sump failed somehow

 

Sorry to hear the bad news!! Did you have a ground probe and a GFCI in use? That combo would have caused the GFCI to trip as soon as water contacted the heating element. Having the heaters on seperate GFCI allows only one to trip.

This is good info and I will take it to heed and do it this weekend....mine tank is in the basement and there is no way I can get it to stay at temp without heaters....not this time of the year....

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chucelli Reefer

chucelli

  • Author

First off,

thanks for the words of sympathy and those who have offered to help me restart should it be needed.

WAMAS is awesome!

 

oh man...hopefully the coral can be saved....Is that your main display or another tank?

 

The picture is of the display. The frag tank resides in the sump which is where the heaters were located.

 

Sorry to hear the bad news!! Did you have a ground probe and a GFCI in use? That combo would have caused the GFCI to trip as soon as water contacted the heating element. Having the heaters on seperate GFCI allows only one to trip.

 

The heaters were connected to the circut breaker portion of a battery backup/surge device. Don't know why the circut on the UPS didn't trip.

I will look into installing a couple GFCI just for the heaters...

thanks

 

-Robert

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Decadence Reefer

Decadence

Wow, that is pretty lousy. I have always admired your tank from pictures on RC. I remember back when you built the LED system, it has been a big influence to my own ventures with LEDs in reef tanks. I did not realized that you lived so close. I would be happy to donate some a couple frags from colonies which would definitely compliment your existing livestock if it would help ease the pain of looking at bleached corals for a couple months.

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OldReefer Grandmaster Reefer

OldReefer

If you start pulling out the metal now, you may be ready for frags by the next meeting. I can bring you some colonies.

 

When a similar thing happened to me, I talked to Dr. Ron Shimek at a MACNA and he convinced me to abandon my sand and rock. In retrospect, I think that is over-kill.

 

I have really dug into this since. Look hard at Chemiclean. That and Polyfilters are about the only things that can clean up the metal. The Chemiclean can take the levels lower.

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Matt LeBaron Master Reefer

Matt LeBaron

Sorry that this happened. I had one of my heaters die on me a couple weeks ago now that caused me some bleaching problems also. I've heard of some people just outright replacing their heaters yearly and I am honestly giving some thought to the idea now.

 

I hope everything recovers.

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L8 2 RISE Oracle Reefer

L8 2 RISE

If you start pulling out the metal now, you may be ready for frags by the next meeting. I can bring you some colonies.

 

When a similar thing happened to me, I talked to Dr. Ron Shimek at a MACNA and he convinced me to abandon my sand and rock. In retrospect, I think that is over-kill.

 

I have really dug into this since. Look hard at Chemiclean. That and Polyfilters are about the only things that can clean up the metal. The Chemiclean can take the levels lower.

 

Did you mean cuprisorb? I thought chemiclean was just for red slime. Cuprisorb does work very well for copper removal.

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