emabie
Non-member
So 2 Saturdays ago when it was cold I noticed my tank temp dropped to 74deg. I know 74 is not too low but my temp is stable to +- 2 almost all the time with multiple heaters controlled by an AC2. So to see 74 drew my attention.
I went down to the sump to find that one of the heaters had died. AGAIN! It was a finnex titanium heater element. The kind that has no built in thermostat or fancy electronics and is supposed to be bullet proof. All my heaters are hooked up to the AC2 by relays that are controlled by the x10 home modules. This helps keep the modules from overloading compared to plugging the heaters directly into the modules. Each heater has it's own powersupply, X10 module and it's own 120v relay.
So a quick trip to petco to buy (2) 300w standard glass heaters and I drop em into the sump and get em hooked up to the AC2. Tank starts to come up to temp and thats good cause it's a real cold weekend forecast.
Sunday morning I wake up and find that for some reason the breaker in the fish room has tripped. I find this odd but perhaps the extra heater is pulling too much juice. I took a look around and did not see anything that would cause the issue so I turned it back on and fired up everything. The breaker was fine and everything looked normal. I could not figure out why it tripped the night before. The kids were helping clean up and perhaps they plugged the vacuum into the one plug in the other room that shares the same circuit???
Now all my corals were not looking happy at all, some new softies I had bought a few days before that had been looking great refused to open. Perhaps having no flow for the time the breaker was off made em mad. Even several days after they still won't open and did not look good.
All my water parameters looked fine. Temp, PH orp were all stable. What was going on?
after a few days and still unhappy corals I finally started investigating more and found that one of the new heaters I added had cracked and was leaching copper, stray current and who knows what else into the water. The heater was in my 300g closed sump so I had to pull it out to check it. When I did I could see a chunk of glass missing and the copper contacts all corroded.
I found out what had tripped the breaker, funny thing is when I put it back on it did not trip it again.
So now several large water changes, 200g + wasted salt water, carbon reactor fired up and a week later stuff is opening up again.
Why is it no one can make a heater that will last???? I have gone though more heaters than anything else. all brands and types. So far titanium elements are the most reliable but I have killed a number of them as well. Finnex, Won Brothers, Petco brand, Fluvel you name it they are the number one cause of disaster in my tanks!
ok end of my rant on heaters!
I went down to the sump to find that one of the heaters had died. AGAIN! It was a finnex titanium heater element. The kind that has no built in thermostat or fancy electronics and is supposed to be bullet proof. All my heaters are hooked up to the AC2 by relays that are controlled by the x10 home modules. This helps keep the modules from overloading compared to plugging the heaters directly into the modules. Each heater has it's own powersupply, X10 module and it's own 120v relay.
So a quick trip to petco to buy (2) 300w standard glass heaters and I drop em into the sump and get em hooked up to the AC2. Tank starts to come up to temp and thats good cause it's a real cold weekend forecast.
Sunday morning I wake up and find that for some reason the breaker in the fish room has tripped. I find this odd but perhaps the extra heater is pulling too much juice. I took a look around and did not see anything that would cause the issue so I turned it back on and fired up everything. The breaker was fine and everything looked normal. I could not figure out why it tripped the night before. The kids were helping clean up and perhaps they plugged the vacuum into the one plug in the other room that shares the same circuit???
Now all my corals were not looking happy at all, some new softies I had bought a few days before that had been looking great refused to open. Perhaps having no flow for the time the breaker was off made em mad. Even several days after they still won't open and did not look good.
All my water parameters looked fine. Temp, PH orp were all stable. What was going on?
after a few days and still unhappy corals I finally started investigating more and found that one of the new heaters I added had cracked and was leaching copper, stray current and who knows what else into the water. The heater was in my 300g closed sump so I had to pull it out to check it. When I did I could see a chunk of glass missing and the copper contacts all corroded.
I found out what had tripped the breaker, funny thing is when I put it back on it did not trip it again.
So now several large water changes, 200g + wasted salt water, carbon reactor fired up and a week later stuff is opening up again.
Why is it no one can make a heater that will last???? I have gone though more heaters than anything else. all brands and types. So far titanium elements are the most reliable but I have killed a number of them as well. Finnex, Won Brothers, Petco brand, Fluvel you name it they are the number one cause of disaster in my tanks!
ok end of my rant on heaters!
