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Hi all, I came home today and found one of my albino cories lying up side down,gasping for air in my 200L tank. I had a closer look and found several of my other cories died. Looking at the temperature, it was 34c (instead of the usual 24c), my heater must have played up!

Attempting to lower the temperature, me and my siblings bucketed the water and quickly filled the tank with cold water. within 30 min we brought the temp to 26c.

We know this is not a wise action as this experience would most likely to cause ick. Some of the fish's scales were burnt Didnt know what to do, we started dosing Melafix.

Not sure if this is wise. The Albino cory is current still gasping for air, we put up a net to separate it with other fish and put air bubble right next to its gill (for 8 hours now). its still up side down, but breathing rather hard (as compared to the previous light breathing, is this an improvement?).

Anyone here had similar experience and willing to share or provide us with advice as to what we can do to make our fish feel better??

anyway, we had replace another Aqua One heater. Couldnt understand why our previous Aqua one heater would play up, i thought Aqua one suppose to be reputable and safe?

You poor thing! I honestly thought Aqua One were the cheaper brand. I've never bought anything from them, though. How big was your heater? I remember when I first got heaters for all my tanks someone suggested that it's best to keep the smallest possible heater for that size tank so when it does play up it doesn't fry the fishies as much. The poor things.

Although, I'm not quite sure a temp jump from 35 to 26 in half an hour was such a good idea...

In all honesty, though, it gets way past 40 degrees up here in the summer and my fish have never had a reaction like that.

Poor things. I have never had a similar experience but you have my sympathy.

Sad news my friend,

i'll give a few pointers, in the future dont lower (or raise) your temp so quick, 1-2 degrees per hour is as much as i think most fish would tolerate.

good work on the melafix if his scalse are burnt, may help prevent any bacterial infection. i'd only use a half dose if no illness is evident. also in the event of a fungal infection (such as ick) melafix will be of little use. i'd recomend having an antifungal on hand (somthing with methalyne blue in it)just incase you need it, again half dose for a fish whos lost his scales.

aqua one are in fact an al cheapo brand, but all 6 of my tanks run on em, (with a spare on hand) in summer i ususaly experence teps of around 31-32, the fish sem to tolerate it (they dont look woried in anycase) the main think that will upset em is sudden change.

a 200l should have a 200wt heater (or as i like to do 2 100wt heaters, incase one dies.) gives me time to replace if i dont have one on hand.

best of luck, keep us posted.

thanks for all of your replies.
My tank is 200L and the heater i used is 200W.
The albino cory died this morning, despite of us putting the airbubble right next to him.
The other fish seem to be doing fine. Didnt spot any ick too.

I was actually surprised to hear that aqua 1 is a cheaper brand. so what brand would you guys go for?

I work in a lfs and I recommend Sera heaters. They have a 5 year guarantee and we have never had one returend. 200W one is around $70. You get what you pay for, you buy cheap you will be lucky if it lasts more than a year, and if it does you'll be lucky if it doesnt fry your fish.

Sorry to hear about your fishie dramas.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

My heaters are even cheaper. I got them for $10 each. They are only 15W heaters though (small tanks). Never had any trouble with them. But for something that big you would want a more reputable brand. I think AquaOne are very popular because they mix a bit of cheapness with some quality. I didn't mean to make it sound like they were bad!

I had a heater go ballistic once, it almost baked my crawfish. That's the only indicator I had at the sudden jump was his lack of motion as my other fish were fine with the increase.

The only other heater I had trouble with was not the heaters fault . . .My chipokae cichlid thought it would be fun to start to smash it against the tank wall, eventually breaking it. The sparks caught a poster on fire, luckily I was home and saw a flash. All of the fish were okay tho. I now have, probably like a 20 dollar heater, not super expensive, that is more heavy duty and suctions to the glass so he can't attack it as hard. He got angry he couldn't break this one and went for other tank decor and gear. He's psycho.

Just because they are inexpensive doesn't always mean they will break down on you.

I lost 12 tetras in a heater mishap. Temp was at 100!! My angels and clown loaches were seemingly unaffected. It is so important to check that temperature every single day. I missed a day and look what happened (