Cobalt heater blew... Help!

mrcoffee2 · Oct 18, 2014

I heard a pop from my tank today. Shortly after a strange burning smell started coming from the tank. The only thing I could think of was my 200W heater... I pulled the heater out and did a quick inspection, it looked fine and even was still heating so I put it back into the tank. About 2 hrs later I still smelled burning so I pulled it out again to inspect. Looking closer I found a tiny 1 inch crack on the bottom and this brownish color substance leaching out.

I sent an email to cobalt but I am more concerned about how my water smells in my tank. I can only explain the smell as "industrial". Everything in the tank seems fine but I am really worried... I turned my RODI unit on and I should have enough water for a 50% water change tonight if I have to.

What should I do? A pic is below you can kind of see the brown rust like stuff (I hope it is not rust...)

3Twinklets · Oct 18, 2014

I would definately toss/take out the heater and do a quick water change.

d2mini · Oct 18, 2014

And run carbon.
Might want to skim wetter for a few days too.

There was a thread on Reef Central about the 200w heaters blowing up. I think they fixed the problem now?

mrcoffee2 · Oct 18, 2014

d2mini said:
And run carbon.
Might want to skim wetter for a few days too.

There was a thread on Reef Central about the 200w heaters blowing up. I think they fixed the problem now?

It was purchased from my LFS so who knows how long they had it before. I would hope the problems with the 200W would be fixed by now.

Hurricane Aquatics · Oct 18, 2014

I had two of those and never had an issue. I did notice a greasy substance on them both when I first purchased them. They all look used when you buy them new for some reason. I am sure everything will be ok, don't overreact and panic or you could kill some livestock. Just run a bit of carbon or gfi and you will be fine. As you know, definitely do not use that heater again, lol.

ReeferEric · Oct 19, 2014

Yeah definitely run carbon, get yourself a nice titanium with an external temp controller so that this does not happen again.

mrcoffee2 · Oct 19, 2014

smells a little better this morning. Hopefully things get better.

I thought these were top of the line for heaters. 2 I have had now have cracked. Maybe I am getting the first gen from my LFS idk...

I threw a glass heater in there. Cobalt should honor my warranty.

nanoman28g · Oct 19, 2014

I have seen a few people mention that this type of heater cracks like that. I'm staying away from them.

mrcoffee2 · Oct 20, 2014

Ok so here is an update. - Cobalt has great customer service.

It turns out that this is a known issue with the 200W cobalt heaters. They said it only happens to 1% of them, but that apparently was enough for them to halt / stop production on the 200W models.

Since they don't make the 200W models anymore they are shipping me a 150W and a 50W heater. That is amazing customer service considering the cost of the heaters alone are $46.

I hope this thread helps some people out! The heaters are really nice, it just a bummer this happened.