Heater malfunction

[Smorgishborg]

Anyone have experience with a heater malfunction? Got home from work and noticed all corals were extremely closed up and first thing I thought was to touch the water. Sure enough it was hot as hell, like 99 degrees hot tub hot. I can’t believe my clown and mandarin survived that boiling. I did two decent water changes and got it down to a not so alarming temp where my elegance opened up again. Don’t want to go too crazy and will let it cool down the rest of the way on its own. How big do you think the damage may be and should I be prepared for a lot of loss? Also think a good heater brand is also in order.

 

[ndrwater]

Water changes definitely helped. Fingers crossed is about all I could tell you now.. time will tell
Heaters are the most unreliable piece if equipment we use. Having redundancy is a good bet.
2 or even 3 smaller heaters is better than one large. That way if you have a failure like you did (almost ALWAYS in the On position) you have time to react.
Having a controller would definitely help as well. Doesn't have to be as expensive as something like an Apex, an Inkbird heater controller would have saved the day here as well

 

[Smorgishborg]

Water changes definitely helped. Fingers crossed is about all I could tell you now.. time will tell
Heaters are the most unreliable piece if equipment we use. Having redundancy is a good bet.
2 or even 3 smaller heaters is better than one large. That way if you have a failure like you did (almost ALWAYS in the On position) you have time to react.
Having a controller would definitely help as well. Doesn't have to be as expensive as something like an Apex, an Inkbird heater controller would have saved the day here as well

I’ve never even heard about inkbird but I think that’s well worth $35. Praying things will make it through this. As soon as I saw the elegance and my acans ticked I knew something was wrong.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Water changes definitely helped. Fingers crossed is about all I could tell you now.. time will tell
Heaters are the most unreliable piece if equipment we use. Having redundancy is a good bet.
2 or even 3 smaller heaters is better than one large. That way if you have a failure like you did (almost ALWAYS in the On position) you have time to react.
Having a controller would definitely help as well. Doesn't have to be as expensive as something like an Apex, an Inkbird heater controller would have saved the day here as well

Controllers are a great way to go. Along with the inkbird a Ranco can be used.

Keep an eye on the fish. Rapid temp swing could stress them enough to weaken their defense against disease. You can also float ice bags which may lower temp a bit more gradually f still high

 

[Smorgishborg]

Controllers are a great way to go. Along with the inkbird a Ranco can be used.

Keep an eye on the fish. Rapid temp swing could stress them enough to weaken their defense against disease. You can also float ice bags which may lower temp a bit more gradually f still high

Fish seem to be doing better now, my mandarin wasn’t moving much but is back around on the hunt now that it’s lowered. Clownfish was being a clownfish the whole time, go figure lol. I’d say about half of the corals are beginning to reinflate slowly. My birds nest and “goldish” stem hammer are my biggest worries and the ones I’m expecting to lose if any. Also wondering if there’s going to be a big die off of bacteria and will have to watch levels closely the next few days.

 

[Smorgishborg]

Here’s everyone as of now.

 

[xiholdtruex]

you should be fine if it was not a long time. Might have a few losses at most. I had my heater go out but it died off and my tank was at 65 degrees for a bit. took a few days for them to calm down. luckily did not lose anything but when its hot its bad. I know that some oceans reach 85+ degrees for short times with no ill effects

 

[ndrwater]

Fish seem to be doing better now, my mandarin wasn’t moving much but is back around on the hunt now that it’s lowered. Clownfish was being a clownfish the whole time, go figure lol. I’d say about half of the corals are beginning to reinflate slowly. My birds nest and “goldish” stem hammer are my biggest worries and the ones I’m expecting to lose if any. Also wondering if there’s going to be a big die off of bacteria and will have to watch levels closely the next few days.

Keep an eye on things, but I would suspect you'd have seen signs already if you were to suffer a massive die off.
Just to err on the side of caution, you could get an ammonia badge to out in the tank. Easy visual reference to see if things start to go sideways.
Have water handy just in case.....

 

[Smorgishborg]

Keep an eye on things, but I would suspect you'd have seen signs already if you were to suffer a massive die off.
Just to err on the side of caution, you could get an ammonia badge to out in the tank. Easy visual reference to see if things start to go sideways.
Have water handy just in case.....

I think for today it’s time to just stop looking at it. Look again tomorrow and see where things are at from there. Thanks for the input and calming me down a little y’all!

 

[Smorgishborg]

Looking about 50/50 today. I have three for sure casualties, my indo branching hammer, a blasto, and pink alveopora. My wall hammer is sliming up and looks like he’s gonna start melting away too. Toadstool, birds nest, and an acan or two look pretty rough today too.