Melted Plastic?

Flying_Diamond

Flying_Diamond

RAWR
Dec 20, 2006
780
0
0
Michigan
Ok, huge problem, I think... suppose plastic melted while underwater in your tank... what would that do to the water/fish/decor/live plants in your tank? I was wondering because I recently bought an Aqua Clear 100 watt heater for my fry tank, and it comes with an annoying suction cup click thing to hold it to the side of the tank, well, it must have malfunctioned or something, because the clip that the heater is placed in melted while in my tank. My fish started acting funny a few days ago, and I haven't been able to maintain a constant temp since I got it. I was looking around the heater today to find one of my fry, and realized that it had melted to the heater... and I need to know what to do with every aspect of my tank, cause I don't know if the burning plastic released toxins into the water/filter, ect or not... I moved the fish to a differen't tank, but want to move them back asap... Thanks for any advice.
 
Do a MAJOR water change and buy a new heater.
 
Ok, So none of my filter/carbon, gravel, or plants are permanently damaged/ absorbed with toxins or anything?
 
I would say change the carbon and clean 85% of the water.
 
Water changes and new carbon would seem to be the way to go. As for your heater I'm wondering if you had the holder near the top of the heater or in the middle or lower. My understanding is that you are supposed to keep the plastic holders near the top of the heater so that they are not clamped around the heating elements.
 
they sure do... I'm guessing you never felt one underwater. It's one of the reasons people should uplug the heaters before emptying/water changing the tank. As to whether they should get hot enough to melt plantic underwater, that, I don't know but the forethought is that the heater is malfunctioning anyway.
 
Heating element can get super hot under water. The only thing keeping the glass from cracking is the heat transfer to the water, from the heater. My 30 gal. has a 100 and a 150 watt heater with the suction cups attached about 1/3 from the top. While watching the controller temp, I can see the 100 watt heater wire element glow red/orange.

As for the heater, a 100 watt in a 10 gallon, much less a 2.5 gallon tank is way too much heater. I'd look for a 25 watt or 50 watt heater. Especially if you aren't going much higher than ambient (ex. if your room is 67 deg. F, and you want your tank to sit at 74-76 deg. F - about a 9 deg. difference = small). Also, you could have already burned out your thermostat, which regulates the temp by switching itself on and off. Small tanks + big heaters = heater burnout and/or high temp flux.
 
Well the heater is reccommended for tanks up to 20 gallons, and I haven't been able to find any smaller, and I have the same size heaters in all my other tanks and they work just fine and haven't had any problems yet. They're just different brands...
 
If your looking for something around 8f above ambient air temperature then a visi therm stealth 25w should work fine in a 10g. If you need a bigger temperature adjustment a visi therm stealth 50w is rated to heat a 15g aquarium to a temperature of 18f above ambient.
 
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