swegyptian
New member
Hi all,
As the title tells you, I have a story about a heater malfunction. These stories are never really happy, but thankfully this started a long time ago, so now I am much less upset about it. I am writing this hoping that this sort of problem can be avoided in the future, but also to express my frustrations in how the situation unfolded.
So one day at the end of November 2008, I came home to my 125 mixed reef, which was all cloudy. I walked over to the tank and put my face close, and realized the problem right away. I could feel the heat coming out of the stand. I opened the doors to see the temperature readout on the heater (an Aquamedic Biotherm controller with a 500 watt titanium heater). It was 96°F. As you may have guessed, the heater was still on, doing its best to raise the tank to the heater’s 111° maximum temperature. So of course I unplugged the heater and plugged it back in again. The setting returned to 78° or so, whatever the default temperature is. Then we opened everything up, put some fans on the tank, and started floating bags of ice. I also started doing a large water change, as lots of stuff in the tank was dead, fouling the water pretty badly. I did 20% each day for about 5 days. I lost a lot of animals, including my Flame Angelfish, cleaner shrimp, and a variety of leather corals. I was able to frag some of the corals, so I had thimble sized pieces of some corals that were really big (5 years of soft coral growth with no fragging).
So the next (actually simultaneous) step was to replace the heater. Right away I purchased a temperature alarm, while a searched for a new heater. The heater that stuck on cost me over $100, the idea being that I wanted a good heater, rather than another glass one that would stop working after a year or two, or one that came with an impossible to adjust thermostat. So after much reading and advice from everyone here on reefcentral, I went with ViaAqua. Plenty of good reviews out there, combined with a nice and easy external thermostat. Part of the advice was also to get two smaller heaters, rather than one large one, and/or a heater controller. For now I went with two heaters. Rather than a single 500 watt heater, I got a pair of the 250 watt models. They are set to roughly the same temperature, but of course now if one sticks on, it doesn’t have the power to cook everything. On the other side now I have a backup heater if one decides against turning on. I am currently looking for a controller to manage these heaters, but for now things are stable.
The story thus far makes me think of three major things. First, always have some kind of failsafe for your heating system. The two heaters idea works really well. Second, why does any aquarium heater on earth have a maximum setting of 111°? I can understand anywhere from 70° to 85°, but I really don’t know who wouldn’t buy a heater because it didn’t have a range into the 90’s let alone all the way to 111°F. Third, why does anyone recommend 3-5 watts per gallon? I am sure that there is some theory behind this, but in my sad experience, it just isn’t necessary. At 5 watts per gallon my 125, with a half-filled 40 gallon sump should have 725 watts worth of heater. At the very least it should have 435 watts. My 500 watt Aquamedic Biotherm was able to raise my tank to 96°, with a room temperature of 70°F. I think this suggests that we really don’t need that much heating power. This recommendation is listed both on www.marinedepot.com and www.drsfostersmith.com I like both of these stores just fine, but I don’t really think that it is sound advice, and it seems to be the industry standard.
So let us move on to the rest of my story. I found the receipt for my order and called marine depot. They gave me the information for Aquamedic, so I gave them a buzz. Unfortunately the heater has a one year warranty, and I had owned it for 14 months, so I didn’t expect anything, but I wanted to know if they had seen this problem before. I spoke with Jason, and he told me that it wasn’t something that he had heard of happening, and even though the unit was out of warranty, that he would give me a credit for the purchase price at marine depot. Now that’s customer service. He told me that “we are all hobbyists here†and that it is just a shame to hear about it happening. So he arranged to give me a credit, as it was the least he could do considering the financial and emotional loss that I had suffered. I was really happy that he was going to take care of me. So a few weeks later, I sent an email to confirm the return the address. It turned out that Jason didn’t work there anymore, but Kim was going to take care of me. She found the notes that he had left, gave me the address, and told me that she would take care of the credit when she got the heater. Great service! Until she got the heater. Then it turned into an email with a very dry “this unit is not under warranty and we will not be issuing a credit. I told her that Jason knew that it was not under warranty and that he was going to take care of it anyway. No reply from Kim. Two months went by, and I called them today as I thought I might as well have a really powerful heater for my water changes. She told me that if I wanted the heater back, I would need to pay for the freight. She said that she would have someone package it and get an estimate for me.
It really sounds pretty standard, but I would think that she could at least eat the shipping back to me. It is not as if I would have sent it in for a claim in the first place if I knew that I would be paying shipping both ways to get me absolutely nothing. A representative of her company told me to send the heater. So now overall I bought a new water change heater, and will in the end spend about $20 on shipping my heater back and forth, after losing a good number of animals in my reef.
I would also like to make it clear that I am not slandering anyone or any company. For the most part, I have gotten lots of good advice and help from people, and my reef is better than ever. The customer service experience was a real disappointment, but you can’t win them all. Again, I am not suggesting that anyone avoid any company, as this was just a fluke. Again, a shame that I was so impressed and then let down again, but oh well. The point is that this experience has been a nightmare. The loss of life in my reef far outweighs the financial losses, so there is a simple lesson. Get two heaters, and choose the wattage carefully, or get a proper controller for your heater. I hope this never happens to anyone else.
Thanks for reading,
Alex
As the title tells you, I have a story about a heater malfunction. These stories are never really happy, but thankfully this started a long time ago, so now I am much less upset about it. I am writing this hoping that this sort of problem can be avoided in the future, but also to express my frustrations in how the situation unfolded.
So one day at the end of November 2008, I came home to my 125 mixed reef, which was all cloudy. I walked over to the tank and put my face close, and realized the problem right away. I could feel the heat coming out of the stand. I opened the doors to see the temperature readout on the heater (an Aquamedic Biotherm controller with a 500 watt titanium heater). It was 96°F. As you may have guessed, the heater was still on, doing its best to raise the tank to the heater’s 111° maximum temperature. So of course I unplugged the heater and plugged it back in again. The setting returned to 78° or so, whatever the default temperature is. Then we opened everything up, put some fans on the tank, and started floating bags of ice. I also started doing a large water change, as lots of stuff in the tank was dead, fouling the water pretty badly. I did 20% each day for about 5 days. I lost a lot of animals, including my Flame Angelfish, cleaner shrimp, and a variety of leather corals. I was able to frag some of the corals, so I had thimble sized pieces of some corals that were really big (5 years of soft coral growth with no fragging).
So the next (actually simultaneous) step was to replace the heater. Right away I purchased a temperature alarm, while a searched for a new heater. The heater that stuck on cost me over $100, the idea being that I wanted a good heater, rather than another glass one that would stop working after a year or two, or one that came with an impossible to adjust thermostat. So after much reading and advice from everyone here on reefcentral, I went with ViaAqua. Plenty of good reviews out there, combined with a nice and easy external thermostat. Part of the advice was also to get two smaller heaters, rather than one large one, and/or a heater controller. For now I went with two heaters. Rather than a single 500 watt heater, I got a pair of the 250 watt models. They are set to roughly the same temperature, but of course now if one sticks on, it doesn’t have the power to cook everything. On the other side now I have a backup heater if one decides against turning on. I am currently looking for a controller to manage these heaters, but for now things are stable.
The story thus far makes me think of three major things. First, always have some kind of failsafe for your heating system. The two heaters idea works really well. Second, why does any aquarium heater on earth have a maximum setting of 111°? I can understand anywhere from 70° to 85°, but I really don’t know who wouldn’t buy a heater because it didn’t have a range into the 90’s let alone all the way to 111°F. Third, why does anyone recommend 3-5 watts per gallon? I am sure that there is some theory behind this, but in my sad experience, it just isn’t necessary. At 5 watts per gallon my 125, with a half-filled 40 gallon sump should have 725 watts worth of heater. At the very least it should have 435 watts. My 500 watt Aquamedic Biotherm was able to raise my tank to 96°, with a room temperature of 70°F. I think this suggests that we really don’t need that much heating power. This recommendation is listed both on www.marinedepot.com and www.drsfostersmith.com I like both of these stores just fine, but I don’t really think that it is sound advice, and it seems to be the industry standard.
So let us move on to the rest of my story. I found the receipt for my order and called marine depot. They gave me the information for Aquamedic, so I gave them a buzz. Unfortunately the heater has a one year warranty, and I had owned it for 14 months, so I didn’t expect anything, but I wanted to know if they had seen this problem before. I spoke with Jason, and he told me that it wasn’t something that he had heard of happening, and even though the unit was out of warranty, that he would give me a credit for the purchase price at marine depot. Now that’s customer service. He told me that “we are all hobbyists here†and that it is just a shame to hear about it happening. So he arranged to give me a credit, as it was the least he could do considering the financial and emotional loss that I had suffered. I was really happy that he was going to take care of me. So a few weeks later, I sent an email to confirm the return the address. It turned out that Jason didn’t work there anymore, but Kim was going to take care of me. She found the notes that he had left, gave me the address, and told me that she would take care of the credit when she got the heater. Great service! Until she got the heater. Then it turned into an email with a very dry “this unit is not under warranty and we will not be issuing a credit. I told her that Jason knew that it was not under warranty and that he was going to take care of it anyway. No reply from Kim. Two months went by, and I called them today as I thought I might as well have a really powerful heater for my water changes. She told me that if I wanted the heater back, I would need to pay for the freight. She said that she would have someone package it and get an estimate for me.
It really sounds pretty standard, but I would think that she could at least eat the shipping back to me. It is not as if I would have sent it in for a claim in the first place if I knew that I would be paying shipping both ways to get me absolutely nothing. A representative of her company told me to send the heater. So now overall I bought a new water change heater, and will in the end spend about $20 on shipping my heater back and forth, after losing a good number of animals in my reef.
I would also like to make it clear that I am not slandering anyone or any company. For the most part, I have gotten lots of good advice and help from people, and my reef is better than ever. The customer service experience was a real disappointment, but you can’t win them all. Again, I am not suggesting that anyone avoid any company, as this was just a fluke. Again, a shame that I was so impressed and then let down again, but oh well. The point is that this experience has been a nightmare. The loss of life in my reef far outweighs the financial losses, so there is a simple lesson. Get two heaters, and choose the wattage carefully, or get a proper controller for your heater. I hope this never happens to anyone else.
Thanks for reading,
Alex
