Burning Rubber Smell in Tank

[Colin Levy]

Out of nowhere tonight my entire house smelt like burning rubber. I quickly tracked it to my IM25 Lagoon tank. I immediately unplugged anything electrical, and started taking each thing out and inspecting it. Nothing was hot, burnt looking, black, or resembled being overheated.

The thing is the water itself is what smells the absolute worst, like the worst burnt rubber I have ever smelt. I poured some of the water into a plastic cup and after washing it with soap for 20 minutes, it still smells of burnt rubber.

I googled for a while and found topics here and there on it, but not a lot. I don't have a lot of RO/DI water made right now (maybe a few gallons) which would do nothing for the water. So I am currently mixing up the little RO/DI water I have and going to transfer the fish over to my old 3g tank just to get them out of that water for now.

Going forward what do I need to do? I am assuming that because the water smells like that, it had to of been from something electrical in the water, which would only leave the pump, MP10, heater and ATO (only an optical sensor so ruled that out). I have taken each of those and run them in separate buckets and can't recreate the smell.

No idea what to do...please help.

 

[soflmuddin]

Any cooling fans, like on lights?

 

[Colin Levy]

Thank you for the quick response. I actually found it and overlooked it the first time.

It is from the heater, a Cobalt Neo-Therm 100 watt. It is leaking/bubbling. Can't be good whatever it is.

Video...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dpyx70s82mlvmxz/20190113_230831.mp4?dl=0

As soon as I plug it in it starts.

 

[Retro Reefer]

They have a reputation for doing that.. the problem generally is on the 150w and I thought they had fixed the issues, how old is your heater? I would do multiple large water changes on your tank over a few days, run extra carbon and maybe a poly filter to potentially absorb some of the toxins.

 

[Geebs19]

They have a reputation for doing that.. the problem generally is on the 150w and I thought they had fixed the issues, how old is your heater? I would do multiple large water changes on your tank over a few days, run extra carbon and maybe a poly filter to potentially absorb some of the toxins.

+1!

 

[EmdeReef]

I had a cobalt explode in the middle
Of the night a few years ago. Supposedly the issue has been fixed but I sure won’t be trying another cobalt...

 

[AMBER NICHOLS]

Thank you for the quick response. I actually found it and overlooked it the first time.

It is from the heater, a Cobalt Neo-Therm 100 watt. It is leaking/bubbling. Can't be good whatever it is.

Video...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dpyx70s82mlvmxz/20190113_230831.mp4?dl=0

As soon as I plug it in it starts.

Argh. I just had mine explode but it was in my water station. The smell is insanely bad. I wonder if a water change or maybe some carbon would help. So sorry!

 

[AMBER NICHOLS]

Also take pictures of it and call Cobalt about it.

 

[Rcpilot]

Good catch though!! Glad you got it out of the tank.

How are your tank inhabitants?

 

[NewGoby]

I had exactly this smell, I ended up losing 1 fish, nearly lost all.. one of my pumps died (it was in a spot I couldn't see), and started to poison everything in the tank.

Do a 50% water change, take out all the equipment, put in spare equipment if you have it, if not.. it might be worth getting some.
This turns nasty real quick in my experience.

Fish will lose the ability to swim, and sink to the bottom, some fish are more effected than others, my two ocellaris & my damsel nearly died, while my Red Firefish didn't even bat an eye.

Just read that you caught the issue, that's great! thankfully!