Broken heater in mixing container

[Charley75]

So I just came out to check the salinity on some WC water for this weekend and discovered the heater in the mixing container broken. If I get all the glass out is this water safe to use? Or do I need to dump it and start over? Thanks

 

[Idoc]

I believe it only has a heater element in it, but I'm not sure if that heating element may have "dissolved" some in the container's water releasing some metals as well as the broken glass. I think I would dump the water, clean the container and start over.

 

[Joe31415]

If you get all the glass...I can't see why not. I'm going to guess it broke into big shards and that there isn't a bunch of glass dust in there. However, my thought would be to pump the water into a temporary holding vessel (or a bunch of them) by drawing it through something like a felt (not mesh) filter sock. Actually, it's probably easier have the pump discharge into a filter sock rather than have it draw through the sock, but the end result should be the same. Get the biggest one you can find so you don't have to turn the pump on and off as often each time the sock fills up.

Then you can hose out the container and pour the water back in.
I feel like a dosing pump (or regular pump that you can set really slowly) will work best so it doesn't overwhelm the sock.
Also, if you have a circulation pump in the mixing station, maybe turn it off for a day before you start to give any glass particles a chance to settle to the bottom (and then dump the last inch or two).

 

[Charley75]

I got all the glass and elements...luckily the broken parts were still in tact. Just don’t want to dump 25 gal, but also don’t want to contaminate my tank.

 

[Joe31415]

I believe it only has a heater element in it, but I'm not sure if that heating element may have "dissolved" some in the container's water releasing some metals

I didn't even think of that, I was assuming OP was worried about glass. I don't think I'd be worried about the nichrome wire, if for no other reason, heaters get broken inside of tanks all the time. If there was an issue with the water getting tainted due to it, I would think we'd hear about it more often.

 

[Charley75]

Luckily it tripped a breaker so the mixing pump shut off too.

 

[Charley75]

The remains

 

[Charley75]

I do have a large 1 micron felt sock I could put the outlet of the hose into to catch any possible glass particles when pumping new water into the tank.

 

[ZoWhat]

I don't ever recall reading in a forum that someone lost fish or corals bc a glass heater exploded in their tank....and I've been on reefing forums for 12yrs or more (thereeftank, ReefCentral, now R2R)

If internals were toxic, I'm sure I've would have read about it by now.

Do you have a FILTER SOCK where you can at least run the 25g new mix thru to grab particulates?


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[R-balljunkie]

Umm, were talking about 5-10 bux in salt. Are we really having this conversation? dump it. Send me Venmo or ill start a gofundme.....