Heater Failed, tank too hot!

[angel4335]

My heater broke on my 10 gallon tank, im guessing it got stuck in the on position and my tank is now 90degrees, lucky i have those pesky pond snails in there or i wouldnt have noticed until feeding time tonight. All thats in that tank is my large pleco, he seems to be doing ok, At the moment im slowly adding a gallon of cold water, unplugged the heater and took the lid off the tank to help the heat escape faster.. I'm not sure what would be worse, leaving the temp elevated or cooling it too quickly? as my first instinct would have been to put some ice in a bag and float it in there, but would this shock the pleco?
This isn't the first heater to fail on me i lost a tank of guppies last time i didn't catch it as quickly (luckily there were only 5 or 6 left in there at the time) that was about a year ago, is there anything that can be done to prevent this? is there some kind of alarm you could buy to alert when the tanks are too hot?

 

[Zakwhite]

I believe you can get heater thermostat plug so it switches heater of when its to hot also look up seneye

 

[angel4335]

That Seneye thing is an amazing idea, If only it didnt cost so much!! $110.80 plus $10 a month per tank.. seems a bit much. I guess if you had a big reef tank with $100 fish or something it would be worth it. but not so much for my guppies lol

 

[Cichlid Kid]

Large pleco in a 10gal????
Try to aerate the water more. At higher temps water holds less oxygen and it could kill your fish. Goodluck n sorry to hear your misfortune.

 

[angel4335]

Large pleco in a 10gal????
Try to aerate the water more. At higher temps water holds less oxygen and it could kill your fish. Goodluck n sorry to hear your misfortune.

yeah, hes about 7 inches to the tip of his tail, he was from someone else so i didn't want to put him straight into the big tank. And I haven't really gotten a for sure answer as to weather he would be of harm to my little pleco or guppies either. But eventually he will be in a 55gal tank.

His tank is back in the green zone now, 74-75ish with no heater, im testing a 50watt heater in a bucket of water for him. As far as i can tell from reading other posts 5watts per gallon is good right?

unfortunately our closest supply shop is wal-mart so choices are limited, so for a 10 gallon tank we have to choose between a tetra 5-15gal (50w) and a tetre 10-30g (100w) I was originally told the higher watt the better since it would run less and last longer.. now im thinking the lower watt the better right? maybe less likely to cook the fish?