I too have recently had terrible luck with marineland stealth heaters. I bought 6-50w 4-75w 1-150w 1-200w and 1-250w a year and a half ago from Drs.F&S. Slowly but steadily they have been developing problems. 1.Overheating and 2.Shocking me. I can see a thermostat sticking, but the shocking me part???? Ticks me off.... I don't even have fish that bash heaters around and when I clean tanks I hardly even bump the heaters or cords. And the shock part is wierd. Can't feel it unless I've got little cuts on my fingers, like I always do, I'm a nail picker. Then...WHAM. makes my whole arm ache...Like I said, Ticks me off. My wife didn't belive me about the shocking part. We were getting into a big argument, where she thought I was kidding her about the shock. She cautiously stuck a finger in and she was ok. She said "see it's ok, your full of it" I said "try putting your nicked skin finger in" WHAM. "Ouch that hurt"...Settled that one. These are supposed to be the best heaters. Mmm...No!!! Now I am torn do I try the "New" Marineland Stealth "Pro" heaters and hope they corrected these problems? Do I take a step down to $8 el-cheapo glass submergible heaters? Do I try EBO-JAGER that are expensive like the stealths and I have heard bad things about also? This heater issue makes me think twice about keeping 11 tanks up, and for sure I am not setting up my other 14 tanks.
DEAD STEALTH HEATERS 4-50w 3-75w 1-150w 1-200w NOW 9TOTAL More than half of my 13 I started with. This is no lie.
When this started, I bought more stealths to replace them...Urgh...$^!% Heaters are definately the weak link in keeping tropicals. I've thought about just heating my fish room from 72 to 78-80 with my existing blue flame propane heater, but not only is that uncomfortable to me but I would have to build a wall in the basement and insulate the other three poured concrete walls and finish and insulate the ceiling and buy a second smaller dehumidifier and put a door on the room and lose the slighty open feel of the basement and stairs, read Claustrophobic. The insulation would also hamper the summertime benifit of having my fishroom in the basement because it's a consistantly cool 68-74 down there and our upstairs does not have air conditioning and gets up to upper90's in july and august.
I've got all 9 fried heaters in a box ready to go to Marineland for warranty replacement. I've been in contact with their customer service dept. and have been assured that these problems have been corrected with their new "Stealth Pro" line of heaters with "All new line of parts suppliers" to manufacture them. We'll see when they send the new "Stealth Pro's".......
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