jkrale

Hi folks. I haven't been around for a while but wanted to share my story. I received a dozen cichlids and two plecos the other day as a donation to my daughter's school. (I maintain two 120gallon aquariums there.) One aquarium is empty and awaiting repair so I was keeping the fish at home for the time being. I got them all settled into a 10 or 15 gallon tank with their original filter and mostly (80%) their water so chemistry etc. stayed pretty good. (I know it was small but I didn't get enough notice to get a bigger tank cycled in time and this one was able to be filled with mostly their original water.)

Yesterday I swapped out the heater with one I picked up at the school, as the heater that came with them was meant for a deeper 30 gallon tank. At 6:30pm or so, I did a round of chemistry tests and checked the temp and it was a bit high (ie. 80ish) so I turned down the control dial at most 1/32nd of a turn.

At 12:00pm I checked on them and all but two of the cichlids were dead and the two remaining were in a bad way. Just by leaning close to the tank to have a look I could feel the heat of the water, I pulled out the thermometer (it was just floating for now) and it was at the top of the scale!) I couldn't reach the plug so I pulled the heater out and it actually sizzled as the the water on it instantly evaporated. I quickly siphoned off 50% of the water and slowly added cold water with conditioner but by then the remaining two cichlids were dead as well.

(Remarkably (or maybe not) the two plecos were fine. They were a bit agitated and weren't impressed with me poking around removing the bodies of their tank-mates but by the time I was done with that task they were out and about and cleaning the glass.)

Has anyone experienced this kind of malfunction before?

I have their original 30 gallon tank up and running and am waiting for the nitrogen cycle to complete before I stock it but obviously would like to avoid a similar malfunction. I'm sure the small size of the tank sped up the process but even if it were a 30 gallon tank or bigger, it would have done them in over night.

I'm sure you can get electronic temperature sensors with audible alarms. Has anyone used these? Would it wake me up a floor and a half away? (Besides that the house is empty for 8 hours a day so it could happen then.)

As I said I'm now looking ahead to filling the new tank and I'll just pray that this is a once in a lifetime thing.

random06

Wow. I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe you can check if there are heaters with over temperature control, so that when the temperature is over the set point of OT (not the set point of your heater), it will shut off the heater until you manually turn it on later after fixing the problem. The OT thermometer should be separate from your controlling thermometer. The chance for both meters to fail is going to be much smaller.

COBettaCouple

I'm sorry that you lost all those cichlids. We've had 3 heaters go 'nuclear' on us like that.. the first took out some mahachai betta fry, the second we caught in time but the third cooked a tank of baby albino bn plecos.

rosalie68

i had that happen a few years ago in a 10 gal. every fish was dead except for the pleco. i had to dump cold water in too! he lived for a few more years!! i couldnt believe that he was still alive! im very sorry that your fish died. i dont know anything about the alarms but that seems like a good idea!