Lesson learned

[Steve]

Lesson learned when it comes to used heaters. Had a heater I bought used about 8 months ago just get stuck on and kill half the super red bristle nose plecos I have been waiting to breed that were about 3" now. Not sure why I decided to check that tank for a 2nd time tonight (feed them earlier this morning and they seemed fine) but for some reason I decided to look at them before heading upstairs out of the shop tonight and found the heater stuck on and half the SRBNP's dead.

Good news is I was able to save about 7 of them at least, plus two other nice plecos I just got from Jon were fine thankfully.

So lesson learned on used heaters. Tryin to look on the bright side at the ones I was able to save because if I had not checked that tank a 2nd time tonight they surly all would have been dead by morning. Still sucks though.

[Regalblue]

Not a good time.  What's your room temperature at?

[Mission Man]

It's not necessarily a "used" thing. I've purchased a brand new heater only to have a "fish boil" within a month of the purchase date. 
That's why I've gone to heating the entire fish room and getting rid of individual tank heaters.

[jamarini]

It's not necessarily a "used" thing. I've purchased a brand new heater only to have a "fish boil" within a month of the purchase date. 
That's why I've gone to heating the entire fish room and getting rid of individual tank heaters.

X2

[Steve]

Not a good time.  What's your room temperature at?

It varies quite a bit since it's the basement and there's not a heating vent close to that area since I built the office wall in front of it. This time of year though it gets down to around 62'ish during the night down there, and about 66/67 during the day when I am down there working.

[Steve]

Just checked them and lost 5 of the 7 SR's that were left overnight. Now all I have left is are two SR's ....uhg.

[Regalblue]

[Steve]

Yeppers. It sucks, just a set back though. I'm going to clean up a pair of 20g's and set them up as pleco only tanks now. One for the actual breeding and the other for grow out. That way I can keep ideal PH, temp etc etc for the plecos. I hate losing the SR's I had but I'll get them going again, and hopefully safer this time for them with a new set up.

Anyone here ever use one of those external temp controls as a fail safe?

[Marty]

If you have several tanks in the area, it might be more economical to get one of those oil filled radiator style heaters for the room. 

[JG]

Sucks to hear about the fish loss Steve. I'm thinking of just insulating my fish room and going heater-less. Cheaper and less risk for equipment malfunctions.

[Ron]

I've also had brand new heaters fail - hard to blame it on being used IMO.

Heating the room is less risky overall, but doesn't work in all cases.

For my soon-to-be big show tank, I went with a Ranco ETC temperature controller instead of relying on the relatively cheap fish heater internal controllers. It had a relay to switch on and off the heaters plugged into it. In the event it fails off, hopefully I notice the tank going cold and fish getting sluggish. In the event it fails on, the individual heaters are going to be set for ~5F above my desired temperature, so if they are still working, they'll turn off on their own before they cook the fish. If one heater does fail on, having needed a set of heaters to heat the tank, hopefully it's incapable of being able to cook the tank itself. Just something to think about for your 265 perhaps.

[LanaK]

When I was setting up my giant display tank, someone gave me good advice about heaters.  Get two smaller ones.  That way if one goes on the fritz it won't be enough to kill off the whole tank and it would be so rare for both to go at the same time.  It has worked so far, but as someone who has come back from a long weekend to cooked fish, I can also sympathize.

[four_by_ken]

I'll never buy a used heater... dont know how old they truely are an how much they have been run.

I will also be replacing my old ones about every two years.

I have started to replace all mine with Eheims now.



My basement gets real cold in the winter also.