Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

i have just set up my first aquaponic system today everything has run suprisingly smoothly until i put the aquarium heater in. 5 minutes in the tank and the thing explodes no idea why??! so... are there any harmful chemicals in the heaters i need to worry about?? is it a faulty product or could i have done something to cause it to break?? thankyou for any help


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I'm pretty sure they must be submerged or they can break, but other than that it sounds like it was just faulty.

I'd ask the aquarium shop if it's toxic.

One tip that might be handy if you don't know it is that you can make a vacuum cleaner with a siphon to pick up the glass.

Submerge a garden hose in your tank, feeding it in so there is no air trapped inside, then put your thumb over one end and take it out and put it onto the ground (use a sieve or something to catch the broken glass) then use the end still under water to vacuum up the broken glass.

If it is a glass heater it is probably because only half of the tube was submersed. The temp differential between the submersed and above water line parts is a common cause of heater glass stress and failure