20 Gallon Tank My heater stopped working and I’m panicking

My heater isn’t working anymore and I don’t know why. I put my hand in to quickly move something around and felt that it was pretty cold. So I checked my thermometer and it shows 64 degrees Fahrenheit. I check to see if my heater is unplugged but it’s not. It’s a new heater than came with the tetra glofish tank set so I have no idea as to why it would stop working. The red light indicator that shows its working came on for like 2 seconds then went back off. I have guppies and they seem fine just at the top waiting for food since the cover’s off. I’m really scared though because my tank just finished cycling and I was ecstatic and now this happens. I’m not able to get a heater today but if I need to I can get one tomorrow. Any advice will be appreciated. Thank you. This is a picture of how the heater is placed.

Hey I have the same heater and the same problem although Ive had no problem with it for 2 years. Did you just put in a new heater and it worked,cause I don't want to fry my fish.

 

AnubiasBarteri: A new heater shouldn’t ‘fry’ the fish. When you install and plug it in. It’ll heat the water slowly then stop at the programmed temp. Many years ago I was out on a fire call during a storm when the power went out. My son watched the temp , it went to 66°F until the power came back then the heater brought it back up in a couple of hours or so. If it had gone lower, he could have swapped tank water for some warm water a bit at a time to keep temp. I also have a spare heater as a backup.

 

Thank you so much! The only reason I was scared of "frying" my fish is because I have heard stories of people doing that. I also didnt know if the fish would go into shock.

 

Some thoughts abt this not happening in the future. I don’t know your tank size, but I’ll convey the principle. Obviously, if your tank is big, you’d probably be using two heaters as primaries. My suggestion is for a single heater, but is the same if you have two. My two larger tanks each have three heaters in them.……two for daily temps and one as the low temp standby in the following explanation.

When you get a new heater, get two. Say your tank is supposed to be at 78. Set the first one at 78 and let it do its thing. Set up the second heater plugged in, but to say 74 degrees. This second heater will be plugged in, but not heating bc the 78 degree heater is keeping temps higher than the 74 degrees. Then, if the 78 degree heater goes out and the temp drops, the second heater will kick on when the water reaches 74 or 73. When you notice this, you can address the 78 degree heater with the fish only losing a few degrees of warmth bc your standby kicked on.

Now…..regarding boiling your fish, plug the heaters into a controller (mine are made by Blueline, but I also have Finnex) and set it to say 82. That way the controller will provide power to your heaters (both the active daily 78 and the standby 74 degree heater) until such a time that water temps rise to 82 if a heater goes crazy and stays on. At that time, the controller will shut off power to your heaters avoiding a boiling of fish. If the water temp falls to 81 or 80, the controller will go back on and power the heaters until your 82 degrees is reached. When you come home and see this, you can, once again address the issue wo having temps get too high.

Finnex makes great heaters and also controllers. I like my Finnex heaters bc they are titanium (not glass) and can be temp set outside the tank water. Use a reliable thermometer to actually set the temps. For example, when my heaters read 80, the temp is actually 79. Since I keep most of my tanks at 78, I merely have the heaters set to 79.

I know you were inquiring abt your immediate situation, but I thought you might like to avoid this from happening again. I had a heater fail years ago and vowed to not have a repeat disaster. Just my thoughts.

 

Some thoughts abt this not happening in the future. I don’t know your tank size, but I’ll convey the principle. Obviously, if your tank is big, you’d probably be using two heaters as primaries. My suggestion is for a single heater, but is the same if you have two. My two larger tanks each have three heaters in them.……two for daily temps and one as the low temp standby in the following explanation.

When you get a new heater, get two. Say your tank is supposed to be at 78. Set the first one at 78 and let it do its thing. Set up the second heater plugged in, but to say 74 degrees. This second heater will be plugged in, but not heating bc the 78 degree heater is keeping temps higher than the 74 degrees. Then, if the 78 degree heater goes out and the temp drops, the second heater will kick on when the water reaches 74 or 73. When you notice this, you can address the 78 degree heater with the fish only losing a few degrees of warmth bc your standby kicked on.

Now…..regarding boiling your fish, plug the heaters into a controller (mine are made by Blueline, but I also have Finnex) and set it to say 82. That way the controller will provide power to your heaters (both the active daily 78 and the standby 74 degree heater) until such a time that water temps rise to 82 if a heater goes crazy and stays on. At that time, the controller will shut off power to your heaters avoiding a boiling of fish. If the water temp falls to 81 or 80, the controller will go back on and power the heaters until your 82 degrees is reached. When you come home and see this, you can, once again address the issue wo having temps get too high.

Finnex makes great heaters and also controllers. I like my Finnex heaters bc they are titanium (not glass) and can be temp set outside the tank water. Use a reliable thermometer to actually set the temps. For example, when my heaters read 80, the temp is actually 79. Since I keep most of my tanks at 78, I merely have the heaters set to 79.

I know you were inquiring abt your immediate situation, but I thought you might like to avoid this from happening again. I had a heater fail years ago and vowed to not have a repeat disaster. Just my thoughts.

You know I actually thank comments like yours, I want to prevent it in the future. I am going to get a controlled heater tomorrow (the situation is not that dire) (Tank is only 15 gal so I only need 1) Thank you so much!

 

You’re welcome. Believe me, I feel a whole lot better even though it cost a bit to do. The loss of fish, to me, would be much worse. Good luck. If you have follow up questions, don’t hesitate to ask. We all learn and pick up ideas all the time.

 

Is the heater inside your house working? How did the tank get that cold?

 

Is the heater inside your house working? How did the tank get that cold?

So update all is fine now, but I lost power for a good chunk of about 2 ish days, and once the power did come back on the heater broke or malfunctioned ig and just wasn't heating up the tank

 

Sadly, it does happen from time to time. So far i have had good luck with my heaters for last few years(knock on wood) and thats with buying the fairly cheap Orlushy's on amazon!