Blew a heater

[moghedan]

Heater exploded last night.

Two rasboras died, glass was scattered throughout tank.



I picked up all the large pieces, but the smaller ones have mostly sunken into the gravel, which is three inches deep. Any ideas on how to get the rest of it out, or should we just allow nature to take its course?

[fishmommie]

Wow. that's tough luck. If your signature line lists all of your tank inhabitants (and you have no snails or bottom feeders) I'd still do repeated gravel vacs to try to catch any small pieces.

If you're really worried, I'd tear the tank down, dump all the gravel and get new - but I'd only use half as much substrate - less is more in this case and much easier to keep clean.
good luck

[benzenering]

how small are the pieces? Would a clean kitty litter scoop work, maybe cover it with nylon hose?

[benzenering]

sorry just saw you have a gravel substrate, not sand, so this will obviously not work. Good luck.

[moghedan]

Too bad, a kitty scoop would have been perfect.

Not seeing any glass go up the gravel vac, but everything seems to be fine. Just the action of vacuuming alone will return the glass to harmless sand in a few weeks. I was mostly worried about otos, they mostly stick to things, but they hang out on the gravel sometimes.

On the positive front, the tank made it down to ~70 degrees, and I now have it back to its proper 76, and no one else seems to have been affected. So, yay for that.


And as for the Trumpet Snails, they are on their own. They are allowed to be in the tank, but I offer them no further care. They want extra support, they gotta come out and do some lawn care or something.

[korith]

If the heater shattered into a lot of smaller pieces, I would probably move all the fish into a temporary container like a large plastic bin. For the filter itself I would remove the filter media and rinse it in a bucket of dechlorinated water. To get rid of any glass pieces that may have gotten into the filter. Also wash out the inside of the filter as well. Then you can set up the filter in the temporary container as well. For a temporary container a large bin from walmart around $7-8 works well, I use them for weeks as temporary holding tanks. For any plants in the tank, rinse them as well. Then you can deal with the substrate and rest of the tank somehow.

Just be glad that it wasn't any worse. Around 2 years ago one of my heaters got stuck in the on position. Woke up to find the temperature of the tank well over 96f, and all the fish got cooked. Very depressing.

I see that you are in the atlanta area, we have a large aquarium club that meets each month, each meeting has a guest speaker followed by an auction of fish/plants that people bring in. The spring auction will be in April, that one usually lasts the whole day and easily 1500 or so items. Great way to meet up with others in the hobby and find good quality fish/plants that you would never see in a petstore. Here is a link to the club forum if you are interested http://www.atlantaaquarium.com/forum/

[moghedan]

I found that website a few days ago. I was thinking about coming to the March meeting and checking it out, but I did not see a location.

I understood a new location was chosen in January, so all the older info on the site is now invalid.

If I miss March, i am definitely coming to the April date at the GA Farmer's Market.

[korith]

I found that website a few days ago. I was thinking about coming to the March meeting and checking it out, but I did not see a location.

I understood a new location was chosen in January, so all the older info on the site is now invalid.

If I miss March, i am definitely coming to the April date at the GA Farmer's Market.

http://www.atlantaaquarium.com/showt...TE-DATE-CHANGE has the info the with the correct location. I do wish they had updated that info on main page instead of burying info in the forum.