Saw another thread on there that actually cracked the tank of a user.
It’s tht thread
Nope theres another cause it was older and was the actual tank not the sump
can anyone offer any recomendations on reliable heaters? after seeing all of the threads regarding the issues with stealth heaters i’m goning to have to replace mine.
the new hydor heaters! unbelievable quality! very accurate! i had DPA order them in for me when i was building my 265g and im pretty sure they stock them now. you wont believe the construnction quality when you see one for the first time.
Ya Hydor for sure… I bought one, and DPA does stock them.
sorry bill i thought you were referring to the cracked sump one…
hate to be THAT guy… (well, u know what im gonna say right?) Saint:)
thanks everyone for the input;i plan on stopping at DPA later this week for a few things, i’ll def pick one up then.
I think there are likely more stores in Delaware then just DPA that carry them. Just have that feeling for some reason.
I had a stealth heater that went about a week and a half ago that shot my tank up to 86 and killed off a batch of eggs… Very annoying, but we went with the inline hydor heater and it is GREAT! Much more efficient and no more dead space heating 
titanium heaters dont crack just threw away a stealth heater b/c is was shocking the heck out of me.
ds4x4 did you read the thread linked to. Someone in there argued that titanium heaters don’t blow up and someone corrected him.
"Not exactly correct. I just had a 300w Finex titanium explode in my 75 gal sump. Blew the black end cap off and the heating element blew out into the sump. "
This may be some random hobbyist who is just repeating what an LFS told him, but I have yet to be convinced that there is any full proof way to eat a tank.(well excluding geothermal and solar power and several other unrealistic options for most hobbyist)
i said crack not blow up. and yes i did read the link but didnt see that part. and so true is it that there is no fool proof way to use a heater/chiller yet… i thought about Geothermal but too much $$ and i havent heard good things about it in this area. However it seemed to work fine at the Assateague island visitor center
Oh Oh. Ive been running a 150 watt stealth in my frag tank sump for about a year now. But have never liked it. seems real slow to react to temp drop and reheat. i backed it up with an old hagen compact Thermal heater set at a higher temp. that always works great. too bad they dont make em anymore. I think i’ll take that stealth out. I never like the idea that it didnt have a visible red running light.
if any of you lurk on this side of the bridge… http://www.njreefers.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=23996.0
60 g 60lbs live rock, fine sand substrate, cycled 5 week old, put corals in this past week, added 3 fish and 3 snails yesterday.woke upto rotten egg smell…searched all over the house, saw tank was a little foggy, oil slick on water…and smells aweful…corals shrinking…emptied 5 gals, skimmed surface…what do i do…HELP !!! Removed snails thinking they were culprit…
stuff stick to you...its on my hands,,,,arms,,,oily
CRACKED HEATER!!!!!!!
what kind do you buy, because this wasn't a glass one. This was the Brand New Marineland Visi Therm Stealth. DO NOT BUY. I will not buy anymore marineland heaters. The first one for my 30 gallon stopped working. This one was in use for less then 2 months and cracked. NO MORE.My friend talked me down from dumping this hobby. A 30 dollar heater just killed my entire setup.
I just emptied all but a few inches of water. I couldn’t even stay in the room and the wife and kids are more important to me then 60 gallons of water. THE SMELL IS AWEFUL. I almost puked 2 times. I cant even get the oily smell off my hands and arms. What do they put in these heaters. I hope I dont get nerve damage.
My live rock, is it dead or alive? Can I use it again? My sandbed? Is this dead or alive? Half my corals are dead, my fish that I had for 1 year in my 30 are now dead. They made it less then 12 hours in the new tank. Poor guys.
4 months to set up, get everything just right, added some fish yesterday, and the **** heater explodes. Last night at 11:30 I was watching my fish and corals under the moon lights and toay i had a hose in it taking all the water out. What a nightmare. Luckily I still have my old 30 still running that I posted for sale just yesterday. Wacky right!
Any pointers, advie would be greatly appreciated!
Grumpy Salty.
To be perfectly honest I’m on the fence about this issue. That being said I still have probably 20 stealth heaters plugged in in my basement at this moment and haven’t ordered any replacements so far.
Ken there is a topic on another forum that reads, “Hagen heater sucks”. Here is another quote from another forum, “i have had horrible luck with hagen heaters”. You might consider pulling your Hagen heater out as well based on the buzz in the forums. Here is another quote, " I’ve had great luck with Hagen’s Visi-Therm"… wait Hagen makes those? Maybe the Hagen heaters are good.
It used to be that you could fudge numbers on a survey to get them to say anything you’d want them to. “%90 percent of the guys in the mall said they prefer the taste of Coke to Pepsi, so buy Coke!†(The part of the survey not shared was that there was only 2 guys in the mall that day located a mile from Coke’s head quarters and all of the 200 women questioned said they hated Coke!) Ok I made up the numbers off the top of my head, but you can see my point. Now adays all you need to do to bash a product is to do a Google search. You can find plenty of good and plenty of bad to push you either way typically.
The internet is huge and compared to the rest of the industry so is the company that makes the stealth heaters and the volume of them that they sell. If for every 5 times someone makes a post about a stealth heater exploding there is one that said their titanium heater blew up and there are 50 times as many people that use stealth heaters then titanium heaters… If you play the odds and listen to random people that have time to complain about the heaters on the forum then the odds would say it is safer to use the stealths.
I’m a little concerned looking at the images and from what I’ve been hearing, but those heaters are still in my tanks for time being.
I still have 3 in mine and a Pro-clear? w/e Charlie was selling for cheap at DPA a year or so ago. (glass BTW) just the one heater was shocking me. you can have 100 atta-boys but it only takes one oopps to screw it all up and everyone will know about the one oopps. I think it more or less boils down to maintenance which means checking your equipment. the one from NJReefers said it had been cracked but running in the tank so go figure. I give a once over to my equipment a few times a month but when a heater looks normal it’s a process of elimination to figure out WTH is shocking me when i touch the water.
Yeah I played that game a couple weeks ago. Got shocked, turned 1/8 of the plugs off no shock, turned a different group of plugs on shocked. Unplugged 4 of the five power heads plugged in that line, no shock, tried another shocked. Had to throw out a Maxi-Jet 1200. 
Figures the one that was shocking me was the one that was working fine with a mod kit and a wave maker.
i have been using a couple of the old hagen thermal compact heaters for 5-6 years. they are tough. but they dont sell the old ones anymore, since they sold them out.
Hagen 100W Thermal Compact Submersible Aquarium Heater
i guess aquaclear makes them now. the old ones were small, simple and cheap.
I also used to buy the hagen Tronic heaters. but when they sold them out to another company, they doubled the price.