Jump to content

Cobalt Neo Therm warning !!


DCReefer1964

Recommended Posts

Got a call while out today letting daddy know his Aqua Lab was on fire :( 911'd home to find a stinky smoking 200 Cobalt Neo Therm heater had ruptured smoking and spewing thermal juices into the sump of my 80 gallon frag tank :(

80db682f8f12611c25e9643ca987ec4e.jpg

e6b167f48af9caa89ad0594b603323ad.jpg

48f5f5c37191df9b9b5ec4f9d9b19686.jpg

67fd5ccbe95d1d146eda43e6a635cbef.jpg

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All is well. Stinks a little. I guess ORA SPS soup is on the menu !!! :(

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

(edited)

I had one of the original 200w heaters and mine did that too. Probably about 3 months after I called heir customer service they sent me a new one so I assume they have fixed the issue.

Edited by Mattiejay6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry to hear about your heater issues.

I pulled this from Reef Central-

 

 joined this forum in order to reply to this thread. Cobalt Aquatics was founded by three guys who left United Pet Group in April 2011, the same month that the recall was issued for the Marineland Stealth heaters that would explode and cause fires. Les Wilson, director of marketing for United Pet Group. Viral Surati, key accounts manager for United Pet Group. Randy Parham, national sales manager for United Pet Group. They all left in April 2011 to start Cobalt Aquatics. Here is some information from the Consumer Products Safety Commission regarding the recall and lawsuits from the Marineland/United Pet Group Stealth heater issue:

Hazard: A wiring problem can cause the aquarium heaters to overheat or break during normal use, damaging the aquarium and posing fire and laceration hazards to consumers. Overheating can cause the heater to shatter or the aquarium glass to break.

Incidents/Injuries: United Pet Group has received 38 reports of fires resulting in property damage and 45 reports of broken aquarium glass. United Pet Group has received one report of a consumer who suffered an eye injury when the aquarium heater forcefully broke while he held it.

There was a large lawsuit involving an apartment fire in Pennsylvania due to the stealth heaters, and United Pet Group was forced into this recall, which these guys from Cobalt Aquatics were working for. They quit or were maybe fired the same month and they then started Cobalt Aquatics. The neotherm heaters are made in Italy, possibly at the same production facility as the stealth heaters. 

My goal in writing this is to urge anyone who has had a problem with these heaters to call the Consumer Product Safety Commission and file a complaint. Here is the number: 1-800-638-2772. If there are enough complaints, they will force them to recall these heaters. 

Now, for my personal experience with the 200 watt neotherm heater. I came home after being gone for about 20 minutes and smelled sulfur. I knew it was coming from my aquarium room, but I couldn't figure out what the issue was. About 30 minutes later, my entire house smelled like chemical/electrical fire. There was smoke in the air. I looked in the sump and there was oil/tar floating on the surface of the water and I saw the heater bubbling smoke. The smell would be compared to road tar mixed with chemicals or paint thinner. I noticed my fish were swimming in circles upside down. The whole tank was nuked. 

I was in contact with Cobalt Aquatics, but I'm not satisfied with their response. I spoke with a woman named Erin, spelled Erienne, which she rudely corrected me, and she was offering excuses and trying to get me to accept their bribes of free products which would equal the cost of the 200 watt heater. This whole incident has cost me over 500 dollars. Erienne suggested that my fish died because of electrical shock, which does not make sense because my pair of clowns survived. I have also asked for a material safety data sheet (MSDS) detailing the material that spewed into the aquarium. The company claims it is epoxy. No epoxy I have ever dealt with smells like that! It is a toxic chemical. It's like the Exonn Valdez went off in my aquarium. Run some carbon Erienne says, yah right, carbon is going to rid my house of this chemical smell.

Anyone who wants to join a class action lawsuit should contact me. Please at least contact the Consumer Product Safety Commission before someone's house burns down. Thank you. 
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It seems epoxy filled heaters  tend to have the same problems no matter what brand they are.

Heaters are a risky undertaking due to their delicate nature. If you have thousands invested in your system, buy the most durable and expensive heater you can afford.

I've seen a dozen or more cracked heater in sumps or tanks electrocute and cook the inhabitants, epoxy filled heaters explode like the statement above, and poorly mounted Titanium heaters to melt through an acrylic sump and cause a fire.

There are several known brands of good reliable heaters on the market. Ebo-Jager is one of them.

One of the reasons of heater failure is water intrusion at the cord junction. Many submersible heaters are only supposed to be submerged to the water line just below the cord junction. The cords are often cheap and ungrounded, they are thin and probably not saltwater resistant.

Many of these titanium heaters sold today are poorly insulated and are poorly constructed. Titanium heaters when exposed to air, get extremely hot and show visible heat waves in less than a minute. The ones I saw catch fire were mounted to the side of an acrylic sump in a plastic cage attached with magnets. They had inline controllers that failed to turn off when the heaters reached an overtemperature condition as they were designed to do.

Buy a good reliable heater that has been on the market for decades, install it correctly, and replace it every few years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just a plus 1 here - I also had a Cobalt heater die in the tank and burn up. No damage and no loss of livestock but I will never buy another Cobalt product again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reminds me of the Stealth Pro failures (not as much the earlier versions of the Stealth heaters, but which were tainted by the failure of the Pro line later on) when they added an illuminate cap to the top of the heater. The caps didn't seal well and, when water infiltrated the cap, the heaters exploded. I see this one split top to bottom, and I see some sort of cap on this model, too, that just makes me wonder if the failure mechanism (water infiltration followed by case failure) is the same. 

 

If you have a heater like this, you may want to consider mounting it in such a way that it's not fully immersed, but in a way that keeps the top cap (and the cord entry point) out of the water and dry. That is, until you get a better, more reliable heater.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...