Gah! Heater issues

[GeekGirlUnveiled]

I have a 29gallon tank in my office. I ran by there this evening to check the water, (I've been having some low alk issues, and I did a rather large PWC to help straighten it out.) When I got there, my tank temp was 85.7 and my firefish was Ich-y.

FORTUNATELY... my heater is on a timer. It was just about to shut off, so it wouldn't have gotten any higher... until the next cycle on--about 9pm. I've never had a heater stick on before, I can see how the fish soup happens in relatively short order.

Now I'm at a loss though, I don't have a spare heater, can't leave the tank unheated because even worse than the 5 degree jump right after the waterchange would be if there is a subsequent 10 degree drop. I'll deal with it, but I'm just very frustrated. Not to mention this tank is in my office, so it's not like I can monitor it for the rest of the evening. I'm home now. I'll probably go back down there again this evening, then deal with the rest in the morning.

Still not sure what to do about the ich-fish. It's a firefish. Right. Good luck to me catching it...

[VWD]

The thing if you go back is set the room temp at a nice temp maybe 76 to 78 and the tank will be pretty stable. It will be bad if you have the room heat off and it gets really cold tonight.

[dobejazz]

ouch ! what a mess

[Loverotties]

Your heater shouldn't ben set that high in the 1st place.Bring the room temp up!

[reef_noob]

I believe she was saying that it got stuck on...not that it was set that high.

[DSB]

Why is your heater on a timer?

[Geoff]

what kind of heater?

you can add a small pump to the sump. they are fairly efficient heaters. you can always have the heater on for just 5 mins every hour or so. that should keep it reasonable until you get another heater. i suggest an Ebo-Jager.

G~

[skeety]

how'd this pan out?

[GeekGirlUnveiled]

It's in process. The building doesn't drop too low, maybe 68, so with the pumps running and the timer set to run 1/2 hour out of every 2, the tank maintained at 77 overnight. I usually run my heaters on timers, just for this exact reason. I always figured if I had a malfunction it would be self-limiting. I just didn't think a 3 hour "on" period would be enough to raise the temp to 86+ if one stuck in the "on" position. I was wrong.

I was also lucky. Had the heater NOT been on a timer, I suspect I would have had a cooked tank.

No access to ebo-jagers here in the shops, and the last two I bought were not the high-quality I am used to, both had thermostat issues, as well as not being able to maintain a high enough temp. I've tried Visitherms, which used to be highly rated, but after having 2 of them go zappy on me, and accepting more than a dozen in returns while I was working at one of the shops, I wouldn't even use them on a goldfish.

The one that was in this tank was a Rena-Cal Top-light Excel, which are very reliable IME, I picked up a Marineland "Stealth," which has done well for me in the clown tank at home. (She is a sand thrower, and knocks the heater down at least once a week, still no issues.)

We'll see, I'll be able to monitor the tank all day today, so hopefully it will be okay. The firefish still has two ich-dots on him, and the other fish has one ich-dot, but that's less than last night, so keep your fingers crossed that they can fight it off. I'm NOT removing them. Too much work. I'll feed garlic/selcon soaked food 3x/day, and do small waterchanges, and just keep my fingers crossed.

Stacey

[Brent Cone]

Good luck with your delema.

[VWD]

Glad to hear You have it under control and nothing got to cold.