bluepandas
Aquarium Advice Newbie
Well, confession time: I unfortunately ended up neglecting my tank for about 2 months. That's not what this is about, but I'm definitely trying to do better from now on. During that time, the water level dropped just enough for my heater to be out of the water, like past the rubber. When I was cleaning today (trying to start being better about maintenance) I saw that the rubber on the heater kind of... melted? I thought, oh no, but I figured it would be fine, after it seemed safe after I poked it a few times, just some blobs. But then I saw the icky stuff on the lid, right above where the heater was and kind of panicked, and also found that my thermometer suction thingy was melted out of shape and would no longer suction. (It was cheap, so the suction part had stopped working a while ago, so I was already used to it just floating around wherever) I really don't know if these things have anything to do with each other, but I don't want to turn it back on and fry my fish if I broke my heater. For now it's just sitting in the tank off and I wiped the icky stuff off the lid and am hoping for the best, so if you have any advice as to what I should do, like if it's broken and I should get a new one, or if it should be fine, I would appreciate it! Hopefully it never gets this bad in the future.
