Cobalt Neo Therm near disaster

[joanstone]

I returned home last night after attending the NEC fish convention for the previous three days. I was sitting at my desk outside my fish room when I heard a pop in the fish room. I went in to check it out and found black smoke coming from my QT tank. I unplugged everything and saw that my (relatively new, very expensive) Neo Therm heater had cracked open, almost the whole length of it. Luckily, I was home and luckily I didn't lose any fish but my house sure reeked of smoke for a long time. I have contacted them and they did get back to me this afternoon requesting more info. I'm not sure what they'll do, but stuff like that can sure make you paranoid about leaving your house full of tanks for vacations, etc. I'm going to be gone for a week coming up and I know that now it will be on my mind (along with stuff like huge tanks leaking, dead fish, etc).

[Discusdude7]

That scares me because I have 3 tanks with only neo therms as heaters. Keep us updated on what cobalt says and thanks for posing this.

[nc0gnet0]

This sounds all to familiar.

[Second Hand Pat]

Glad you were home Joan and all is well except of the heater.

[Discus-n00b]

Ouch. What temp were you running it at? I have had one in my SW tank for quite some time without issue but only running it at 78ish. I suspect they'll do you right. I love Cobalt and their products, local company that I try to support whenever possible. Keep us updated.

[joanstone]

It was set at 80 degrees. When I put another heater in to replace it, it apparently hadn't been maintaining the 80 degrees though. Glad I wasn't QTing discus in it. Cobalt said they would contact me tomorrow, so we'll see what they say.

[adapted]

You may want to let them know, discreetly, that you are posting about this event online... might serve to focus their attention. If they aren't keen to know how and why their item almost burned your house down, they deserve to go out of business sooner rather than later. (I wonder how many near-disasters like yours can occur -- and be publicly discussed -- before a product line's sales are affected.)

[joanstone]

Well, here's my update. I heard back from Cobalt the day after I initially contacted them. They requested more information about the heater and indicated that someone would be in touch with me the following day (which would have been 4/1). I responded immediately with the requested info. I have not heard back since, but have emailed them again. I expect/hope that I will hear from them tomorrow.

[joanstone]

I did hear back from Cobalt. They offered to send me two 100 watt heaters since they were out of the 200 watt. I was ok with that and I already received them. I sent my blown heater back as they wanted to see if they could figure out why it blew like that. I am happy with the customer service, but am hoping it was a rare occurrence and it won't happen again.

[s14swap240sx]

was this heater on a gfci outlet or regular outlet? Just wondering if something like this would trip a gfci outlet because that is simply terrifying.

glad you where home!