Whoops!

[Lauren]

I'm good at screwing up, today was no different for sure.

today I had 2 major screwups, one with draining a tank, I got preoccupied and it drained to about 90% the titanium heater abve the water line, I walked in & it had turned blue, I unplugged it quick and went to take it out, upon opening the cover I could feel warm air and decided it must be way to hot & it had to come out NOW. So I grabbed a cloth diaper, folded it many times over & grabbed it, It still managed to burn my thumb through all these layers but not bad. Luckily I got it out without any injury to my fish or major injurys to myself

[April]

your not alone. i broke alot of visitherms that way. when you re-add the water is when you end up with smashed heaters. putting your hand in then..would not be wise.
some brands shut down when out of water. but..some dont.

[Lauren]

I'm glad I realized the problem and unplugged it. I've heard even titaniums can break, and I dont think I'll try using this now almost all blue one again as it may have sustained some nice burning damage (it burned through one of the rubber suction cups that held it while I was pulling it out)

[Cosmo]

Lauren,

Have a couple blue titaniums too... you're not alone :) Worse is if you had unplugged it then forgot to turn it back on when you were done :(

[Lauren]

I put an ebo in to replace it, Are blue titaniums still usable? I checked for any problems and there seems to be none except discoloration & melted rubber

[korbi_doc]

::) ::) I had one that did the same, cuz I left it outside the tub by accident & turned it on. Was lucky when I found it, had not done any more damage than a small burn in the carpet. Could've been major. I did not dare to use it, threw it out, which for me is unusual, really cheap, hate to throw'm away, always want to find a way to "fix" it. I'm working real hard to get over that hangup, lol, & no, Al, still haven't thrown the ebo away, lol, Dottie ;D

[adapted]

...that a cat that has sat on a hot stove burner will never sit on one again. And it won't sit on a cold one either.


Seriously, I thought the titanium heaters automagically turned off whe they begin to overheat. Or is that just some of them, like the Wons.


I had been wanting to get some and auto-shutoff was the main reason.

[henryD]

Ouch!!!!....SOrry to hear that Lauren. Next time just take a bit of water...and slowly douse the heater so it become cool enough to touch. I have done that 1 time I believe. The heater is still ok to use. As long as you did not burn any of the wire or cords your fine. If you do they you will get an electrical shortage problem.

Adapted...As far as I know the won brothers are do not have an automatic shutoff. I have used the titanium ones. I am speaking about the normal analog and not the digital LCD ones. The digital ones I do not have experience with so can't tell you how they are.

Henry

[jaydoc]

I did a similiar thing to a 1000 watt titanium in my storage tank in the basement. The thing was actually glowing fire brand red when I found it. It worked fine later but it quit working for goood after about 6 months. I assume the early failure of this one year old heater was the previous event. I now have digital thermometers with alarms on my larger tanks and my heaters are wired to the same switch as my pumps/filters so that if the pumps/filters are off for water change etc., the heaters are also off.

[Lauren]

I plan on unpluggin heaters during water changes now, although this also has a downside of forgetting to plug them back in. SO I'm going to make a GIANT note on my fish room door as a reminder. Everytime I think I cant screw up more I always do.

Lauren

[Willie]

I've done that so often its no longer memorable. I've had VisiTherms blow up when water was added and Ebos crack quietly when the same thing happened. I've had titaniums get very, very hot. Now I unplug the heaters BEFORE changing water.

But I've marked all the receptacles that power heaters. Now I just make sure all the marked ones are plugged in when I finish the water change.

W

[Cosmo]

Lauren,

Word I got was that if the internal seals, and/or wires, weren't melted it should work fine.. only use it on occassion now though in the holding tanks just in case..

I normally turn off the heaters before a WC, but had forgotten until I "smelled something burning".. my usual safegaurd was to turn on a light in the cabinet whenever I unplug the heaters for a WC so I know I gotta do something down there when I"m done.. but.. sometimes I forget to turn the light on, and...

NOW.. I'm plugging all the heaters into timers, w/o any on/off tabs and inserting an "on" tab to half hour later.. if I forget to turn the heater back on, the timer will :)

..now.. if I don't forget to insert the "on" tab... ;D

Jim