Finnex Heater HMH 500S cooked my tank

[Kellyntx1]

I woke up Thursday to a horrible smell. I thought my kids left the oven in it something. When I went in the living room my tank was cloudy and the external temp display was blinking 98.9. I reached into the water and it was very hot. All of my fish were floating (except for a freshwater molly) and all of my coral was gone. I’m completely heartbroken. Has anyone else had this happen? I contacted finnex and they want me to send the heater in for testing. This tank was 2 years old and finally starting to really take off.

 

[Cell]

So sorry this happened. I'll never run a single heater strong enough to cook my tank. Always 2x heaters at around 60% strength. Always on a controller as well. Redundancy is paramount when dealing with aquarium heaters that are destined to eventually fail.

 

[Justanano]

Wow

 

[jhuntstl]

These posts always hit me right in the gut. I am incredibly sorry for your losses.

As stated above, some form of redundancy is crucial. I run a ranco controller with two jager heaters. Ultimately I'd like to have the ranco behind a hydros or apex.

Hope you pull through and rebuild something even better with this unfortunate experience under your belt.

 

[Kellyntx1]

These posts always hit me right in the gut. I am incredibly sorry for your losses.

As stated above, some form of redundancy is crucial. I run a ranco controller with two jager heaters. Ultimately I'd like to have the ranco behind a hydros or apex.

Hope you pull through and rebuild something even better with this unfortunate experience under your belt.

Definitely a lesson learned. I just broke the tank down going to turn it into a fish only. I have a small 18G cube with coral. For now that will have to do.

 

[Kellyntx1]

So sorry this happened. I'll never run a single heater strong enough to cook my tank. Always 2x heaters at around 60% strength. Always on a controller as well. Redundancy is paramount when dealing with aquarium heaters that are destined to eventually fail.

Definitely learned my lesson.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Oh no !! Ive had my heater for 2 years- no issues. Finnex 800wt/ Ive always used finnex

 

[reefinatl]

2 small heaters, replace annually, and consider a stagger replacement to get different batches, or use two separate but reliable brands. I'm also running one aquasmart heater alarms. It'll cut power at 84 or something like that as a backup to the heater thermostat.

Only a fail on position doser tied to kalk can nuke a tank so thoroughly as a heater.