Cobalt neotherm heater just blew up!!!

I just found my neotherm heated tank at 96F. I don't need to tell you how it went. What piece of junk.

What wattage?

For all you wondering how to resolve this with Cobalt, go back and read my post on this thread, where I finally got a response. I just got a bunch of food and stuff from them--worth more than the heaters I lost.

From what I understand, their food is crap. I have heard it referred to as the McDonald's of fish food.
That being said, even if it is good, I wouldn't change my inhabitants diet because a manufacturer couldn't offer anything more substantial to replace a defective product.

To me the "worth" of a product is more that just the monetary value.
 
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I just found my neotherm heated tank at 96F. I don't need to tell you how it went. What piece of junk.
Did your heater melt too? Ordinary overheating could happen with most heater models, due to their cheap bimetal thermostats wearing out. To avoid overheating the tank in case of thermostat failure, don't use a too large heater.
 
Gotta tell you, I was really considering adding a neo therm 150W and after reading all this going on, forget about it.
It looks like it is a poorly engineered heater, only looks nice but very risky.
I bought a "neo stat" heater controller from Cobalt and what a piece of crap.
Turned on my heater and shut it off 10 times in 20 seconds. I placed the temp probe in many spots to try to reduce this from happening and it didn't.
I actualy think Cobalt is a crappy company based on what I read about their customer support also. People blowing smoke in their houses and no response in many instances.
Won't be seeing my money
 
What would you expect them to do to make it right? Not questioning you as I am sure I would be very frustrated in that same situation but at the same time what expectation do you really have?

I would expect them to acknowledge the issue and apologize. If they've made an improvement in the product this should be communicated to consumers who may have one of these in their tanks but aren't aware that there is an issue. Electricity plus water equals a fire and electrocution hazard. When Seachem had there issue a year or two ago, reefer’s tanks were nuked and they replaced/reimbursed the cost of livestock for some of those affected. Has Cobalt even publicly acknowledged that there is a problem with these heaters? Luckily I didn't lose anything and only had a huge mess to clean up. I feel really badly for those who aren't standing next to their tank to catch the explosion and only find out about it after comning home or waking up to a tank full of dead fish and coral. Whatever that is that leaks out of these heaters, it is deadly to fish.

My new heater came but it is in a box in my storage closet. It looks exactly like the one that exploded in my sump.
 
Are the new heaters blowing up ? I noticed foster and smith had the 200 watt ones back in stock.



Don't think anyone is dumb enough to take the risk on a new version of the tank grenade. If you gave me one for free i would politely place it in the trash.
 
iirc bad batch of carbon, had copper in it. Each batch is now tested and they cut some serious checks to customers who were effected.

I thought that was Blue Life when they released their new canister filters?
Or did it happen with Seachem too?


I've checked this thread periodically, but has anyone had the smaller 50w melt them yet or is it still isolated to the larger ones?
 
I know Kent recently in the past year had a major issue with their Carbon and wiping out tanks. It hit a LFS near me. There's a few threads on it. They compensated quite a few people for their losses.
 
I thought that was Blue Life when they released their new canister filters?
Or did it happen with Seachem too?


I've checked this thread periodically, but has anyone had the smaller 50w melt them yet or is it still isolated to the larger ones?

No issues with the 50W so far. Although, mention of a 75W unit has me concerned. I am leaning towards removing it.

The form factor will be tough to beat however.
 
After reading through this thread, several things come to mind -

It's very possible that the original defect had to do with a manufacturing process or materials defect, and as such a new heater could look exactly the same but not have the problem. That said, I don't think I would trust it either. A salt mixing tub would be a good use for it that wouldn't endanger livestock. I completely agree that some communication as to what the problem was and how it was remedied would nice and go a long way towards reassuring people that the issue has been addressed.

Most, if not all warranties limit companies' liability to replacement of the defective product, so even sending other products of equal or greater value is beyond what they are legally required to do. What is legally required and what is good customer service are not always the same.

Unfortunately, the lawyers frequently get in the way of doing what is right (on both the companies' and the customers' sides.) The corporate lawyers tell the companies not to admit anything so they don't open themselves up to liability, and not to give out more than the have to because it sets a precedent for all future cases, putting them on the hook for millions of dollars. The consumer class action lawyers see one good deed by a company and say everyone is entitled to it not matter what and turn it around to imply guilt by the company.

It certainly sounds like they had some issues, and I'm not trying to defend Cobalt or their product, rather point out that the business legal climate in the U.S. can make doing the 'right' thing difficult at times.

Finally, as was mentioned above, heater thermostats are notoriously unreliable and frequently fail in the 'on' position. for this reason, getting a heater controller like this one is good insurance to protect your livestock.
 
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