HELP! Heater and filter malfunction

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HybridFinatic

HybridFinatic

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Oct 24, 2018
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I have one tank atm and I went to go do my normal water change routine and nothing out of the ordinary happens until I go to plug the power strip back in after the water change and nothing happens. I test to see if it something with the outlet or the power strip but they seem to work completely fine with other stuff but the heater and filter seem to be fried and not working at all even when I plug them into other outlets. What possibly caused this. It’s nearly 2:00am and I don’t need this right now.... This is the only cycled media I have I can’t let it die. What do I do? How can I avoid this in the future? No heater should be fine. Room temp (72 degrees) won’t kill my fish but I kind of need a filter.
 
Update: Yeah so I’m never doing a water change at 2:00am ever again. This would have been much easier to deal with in the daytime for me. Me and my fish lost quite a bit of sleep on this little fiasco. Anyways I found a temporary filter in my garage that’s too big for the tank but whatever it’s temporary and the BB is saved so that’s good but the fish will be in 72 degree until I get another heater. I planned on upgrading my tank anyways so I probably won’t replace it before then. Still looking for some clues as too what may have caused this...
 
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HybridFinatic said:
I have one tank atm and I went to go do my normal water change routine and nothing out of the ordinary happens until I go to plug the power strip back in after the water change and nothing happens. I test to see if it something with the outlet or the power strip but they seem to work completely fine with other stuff but the heater and filter seem to be fried and not working at all even when I plug them into other outlets. What possibly caused this. It’s nearly 2:00am and I don’t need this right now.... This is the only cycled media I have I can’t let it die. What do I do? How can I avoid this in the future? No heater should be fine. Room temp (72 degrees) won’t kill my fish but I kind of need a filter.
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Typically it will be because of something like shutting it off while cleaning dislodged some debris and jammed the filter. Or some cheap, weak motors have a hard time starting and need a whack or a bit of a poke. Or faulty.

My Fluval FX5 doesn't take well to being turned off and on frequently, it completely stops working until I take it apart and reassemble a few times.
 
TwoHedWlf said:
Typically it will be because of something like shutting it off while cleaning dislodged some debris and jammed the filter. Or some cheap, weak motors have a hard time starting and need a whack or a bit of a poke. Or faulty.

My Fluval FX5 doesn't take well to being turned off and on frequently, it completely stops working until I take it apart and reassemble a few times.
Click to expand...
I wish it was something this simple but no the filter and the heater both don’t work at all while before the water change they worked completely fine.
 
Your filter media bacteria will not die from a few degrees of temp drop, they usually don't go dormant until temps drop into the 50s.
And I agree about the heater, I usually figure 1 year is the average life span of any heater. I know people who replace them yearly whether dead of not, because a worse case scenario is when they fail in the "On" position and cook the fish, which is more common for me, and why many aquarists replace yearly.
 
I was reading up recently on things to always have on hand as an aquarium owner and top of the list was a backup, new in box, heater. Also for larger tanks is not a bad idea to run two heaters instead of one, that way if one fails you have a backup still at least trying to keep the water temp right.

Of course none of this helps you are the moment. :)

Your tank can probably survive without a filter running for a while, at least until the morning. The temp drop really depends on the type of fish you have. If the world wasn't currently a chaotic mess, you probably could have hit a 24 hour Walmart to grab some temporary fixes at 2 AM but your best bet now is to plan to get over to a fish store as soon as they open and get what you need. Good luck
 
twentyleagues said:
When plugged in does the motor hum or buzz even slightly?
My guess is the heater died before this you just didn't notice.
How often do you do maintenance?
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No it doesn’t. No response to plugging it in at all. I’d say it’s unlikely the heater died before I noticed because I checked my temp earlier in the day and it was what the heater was set too and if that was the case it would have already been room temp. Maybe something electrical just fried both of them...idk. I do maintenance every 3 days as of lately.
 
NilusFishFamily said:
I was reading up recently on things to always have on hand as an aquarium owner and top of the list was a backup, new in box, heater. Also for larger tanks is not a bad idea to run two heaters instead of one, that way if one fails you have a backup still at least trying to keep the water temp right.

Of course none of this helps you are the moment. :)

Your tank can probably survive without a filter running for a while, at least until the morning. The temp drop really depends on the type of fish you have. If the world wasn't currently a chaotic mess, you probably could have hit a 24 hour Walmart to grab some temporary fixes at 2 AM but your best bet now is to plan to get over to a fish store as soon as they open and get what you need. Good luck
Click to expand...
Yeah I do have an emergency air pump with an airstone and my plan was too put my media on top of it until the next day but I as said above I found a temporary filter in my garage. Not really the emergency it was anymore. My fish will be fine but still don’t understand what happened.
 
duanes said:
Your filter media bacteria will not die from a few degrees of temp drop, they usually don't go dormant until temps drop into the 50s.
And I agree about the heater, I usually figure 1 year is the average life span of any heater. I know people who replace them yearly whether dead of not, because a worse case scenario is when they fail in the "On" position and cook the fish, which is more common for me, and why many aquarists replace yearly.
Click to expand...
Yeah I suppose it could have been much worse.
 
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