# LF - LOTS of fish



## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Feel my pain - 36 hours between temp checks on my 90G - only to discover heater malfunction - temp at 94 - lost ALL stock except for 2 small angels and my cherry shrimp 
Lost about 30 cardinals and 30 serpae tetra, as well as 30+ BN plecos (albino, calico and silvertips) and need to completely restock
Anyone breeding ANY type of tetra and have a bunch for sale - hopefully cheap?
Thanks


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## Mykiss (Apr 22, 2010)

We can easily ship you fish if you like?


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## chiroken (Apr 10, 2011)

feeling your pain...had a heater stick on overnight ( only 15months old) and lost 80% of an mbuna tank. Hope you find fish you're looking for.


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## April (Apr 21, 2010)

Sorry to hear! What kind of Hester was it?


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## shift (Dec 21, 2012)

Sorry to hear that. What size of heater did you have in there?


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## pdoutaz (May 13, 2010)

Odyssea 500w fully submersible heater - 17" in length - only about 6-9 months old


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

Sorry to hear. Hope you contact the manufacturer. I would never buy a heater made in China for this reason.


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## smccleme (Aug 20, 2012)

I've always thought it made sense to just barely have enough watts to heat, or even undersize your heaters. And it's better to have multiple small ones, instead of one big one; for this exact reason. A 100watt on the fritz would have a hard time over heating that much water. 20/20 hindsight though eh?

If it helps, I lost a tank load of fish due to copper poisoning.

Sorry for the loss.


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## mrbob (Aug 9, 2012)

Oh Steve sorry to hear that! they seemed OK the other night?


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## smccleme (Aug 20, 2012)

Hi Bob, that was a while ago. When I had copper lines for my auto water change system. Took me a while to figure out what the problem was. All plastic now, all good.


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## chiroken (Apr 10, 2011)

smccleme said:


> I've always thought it made sense to just barely have enough watts to heat, or even undersize your heaters. And it's better to have multiple small ones, instead of one big one; for this exact reason. A 100watt on the fritz would have a hard time over heating that much water. 20/20 hindsight though eh?
> 
> Sorry for the loss.


Mine was I think 150W on a 55 gallon tank. I'm now set up with a digital controller from digital aquatics. If a heater was to ever stick on it only gets power when the controller senses the temp has dropped and puts power to the heater. Fixes the faulty heater issue. I'm also going to run 2 x 300w heaters on a 300g with large sump so that if one fails (meaning stops heating) I will still have 1 heater supplying some heat. Yes, hindsight is 20/20 and I've learned the hard way.

I wouldn't want to just barely have the wattage to heat though. I'd want the ability to be able to bump up the temp to say 86+ in certain situations. Over-wattage though doesn't make sense either. I had it explained that you are better having a smaller wattage heater spending more time on than a large heater always on-off-on-off as a heater fails more likely due to the thermocouple portion failing (stuck on) rather than the heating coil failing due to too much use (dead heater). On-off-on is more wear and tear. Makes sense.


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## Elle (Oct 25, 2010)

For large heaters, a controller is definitely the safer way to go. We use a controller with our 150g tank...it's running a 300W titanium heater and there's no WAY I'd be brave enough to run that kind of wattage without a controller. Luckily for us, this one has to run off a controller.

Backup heaters are also a good plan.


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