Heater Blow Up

[rjcatlin]

Last night the heater in my Fluval Spec V blew up and caught fire. I only had one fish in the tank, a clownfish. He died , I assume from the toxins from the heater. Anyway, I was wondering if any of you have had this type of thing happen and if so should I be able to clean my sand and live rock with normal water to remove any residual toxins.

 

[Autumnsky]

Wow, that is a very scary thing to have happen and sad too. I am sorry to hear about the loss of your little fish.

I am not sure of the metals used inside of a heater, but I would imagine it would be pretty much not good for fish.

You may want to completely change everything in the tank and I use baking soda and vinegar to clean a tank when empty, also a mr. clean magic eraser or generic one. Plenty of rinsing after, around the rim and edges as well, lots more rinsing.

Then after all that maybe do a test with some snails to see if they survive.

Do you have any idea what happened / why it caught on fire?

 

[Delapool]

I was wondering this myself as had never heard of such a thing.

 

[rjcatlin]

I know what caused it to blow up. Honestly it was neglect. I had the heater in the sump portion of the filter section and the filter was clogged an the water level got too low in the sump.

I go through spells when I don't want to do anything to my tanks. Almost burning down my house has kinda made me reconsider such a thing.

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[Delapool]

I must admit I regularly think about simplifying the tank. Away from plants lol.

 

[rjcatlin]

Lol. I hear you. Just get busy with other things in life and the hobby takes a back seat.

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