Lost all of my fish last night/faulty heater.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Tue Dec 09, 2014 10:29 am

All of my fish have died overnight I woke up this morning to all of them floating belly up and the water was boiling hot, the 60watt submersible heater I've been using is only two years old but it failed last night and heated the water up to about 100 degrees which is so far past the safe maximum and none of them could take it.I'd checked the tank temp before I went to bed last night and everything looked fine but sometime between 12am and 8am something went horribly wrong and now I feel sad and depressed I sank over three hundred dollars into those fish since I first got them most of them were relatively new about six months this is just so sad...I'm planing on using the twenty gallon for my crabs when I can finish getting it cleaned out.

Geranium · Post by **Geranium** » Tue Dec 09, 2014 1:35 pm

Condolences. My goodness that is awful!

Keg · Post by **Keg** » Tue Dec 09, 2014 7:37 pm

Sorry to hear that.

Laurie LeAnn · Post by **Laurie LeAnn** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 2:18 am

it's always sad when something dies. I spent 50$ on a bubble gum fish tank once and some strange little fish and they said the type of bulb to use so I bought it and used it and left it on over night and it boiled them! The only way you could really even see then in the tank was to have the light on. Next time we got cheap fish and only used the light once in awhile for short times.

Keg · Post by **Keg** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 7:02 am

Crabber85What kind of heater was that? Is it the same kind used for crabs? It seems like this problem happens periodically.Do heaters have a safe life span?

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 7:15 am

@Keg, its a submersible heater meant for use in water for tropical aquariums, the packaging says that the heater has a two year life expectancy so I guess I got the full use out of the unit I just hate that it had to end this way.

jenok · Post by **jenok** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 3:49 am

I hate that that happened, that really sucks. I'm having problems with my tank too. but I only have 1 fish, a shrimp and a placo in it right now the fish seems to have some kind of fungus on it's nose eye area. I treated the water and it looks better but doesn't seem to want to completely go away.

Keg · Post by **Keg** » Wed Dec 24, 2014 4:44 pm

I bought a little heater for the first time because the situation changed and one of my tanks is getting too cold.It hardly did anything. So now I'm trying to heat the tank with a conventional lamp/lightbulb. I covered the glass shade with tinfoil to keep the light in. At first it got a bit too hot on the side it was close to. I moved it a little farther from the tank and it seems OK, although it is still a bit too cold on the other side of the tank.The lightbulb seems like a good idea because when it burns out it will just stop, instead of overheat.It is also much better than heating the tank with a general room heater because that heat rises and doesn't help the tank on the floor.