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Cobalt Neotherm Heater blew up in sump! help! (1 Viewer)

Myclang

Myclang

BOOM BOOM
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Dec 1, 2012
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Location
Blaine, MN
I woke up to a burning smell throughout the entire house at 2am. I couldn't find the smell but, found it was it's strongest at my 180 reef. I found that my cobalt neotherm heater I bought from rays reef this past summer, had cracked and spewed something into tank. I've been all over the cobalt website, and forums on google. I don't know whats inside it. I IMMEDIATELY put a huge canister of carbon hooked onto the sump, and killed my skimmer (to protect skimmer). I don't have time to do a water change tonight, but will do one in the morning and probably one a day this weekend.

can anyone tell me whats inside the neo therms? they're supposed to be heavy duty/ indestructible. I've never ever had it out of water, and it sits completely flat on the bottom of my sump. I'm really nervous this might be the end for this tank if it wipes everything out.
 
Can't speak to that heater, but electrocution is the main danger for most of them, not the contents. run the carbon, keep the temp up, should be fine.
 
I had that happen with a cheap power head in my frag tank.. So scary because u can't find where the smell is coming from..damn near called the fire dept till I found the damn pump was bubbling.
 
Had it happen to me a couple times. I ran carbon and did 25% water change each time and all good.
 
Aren't the Neo-therms suppose to be ran up and down and not laying on the bottom? I know it SHOULDN'T be a big deal, but I remember reading somewhere they "strongly suggest" running the heater on the side of your sump and up and down, not on the bottom laying flat.

I'd definately call cobalt and get an explanation..
 
In the instruction they specify it either needs to be laying flat on the bottom of the tank, or fully submerged up or down. it was super scary! I woke up thinking a computer was up in flames. the smell was so bad that it's still very strong in the house, and I thats after I've removed the heater, ran carbon, and High Voltage (hahaha) was nice enough to come over and do a 25% water change for me.

Inside the heater theres a ton of dielectric grease, so when this thing over heated it blew a crack roughly 6" long down the heater, and just puked all over into my tank. there was no stray voltage though. I did end up losing a bit of LPS, but it wasn't doing well to begin with. Some SPS is very faded, but not bleaching or necro.
 
You had better contact the company to find out what they have in those things.

Is your skimmer back on yet?
 
No my ATS is running everything. Carbon on the back end to help remove anything else. I'll be doing a few water changes today. I tried getting in contact with cobalt aquatics. couldn't reach them for a copy of the SDS of that particular product. I'll try again monday. In the meantime I'll be doing 20/25% water changes each day this weekend.
 
They seem to have a fairly active Facebook page also. Might be worth a shot for another contact resource.
 
Yeah, I will put in a message on their facebook today. It has a 3 year warranty, and was only about 6 months old so I think they'll replace it pretty easily.

I do know my experience is one of 2 I found on google. I think it just malfunctioned and didn't shut off, and caused the oil inside to over pressurize and blow. If it weren't for the oil getting in the tank, i wouldn't be as concerned. I was worried I'd have to break down the entire tank and scrub it down. glad I haven't lost any more coral than I already have.
 
You mentioned that you think the heater got to hot or stuck on. That's what you thought caused this. Did you have it on a controller. I know that heaters fail and get stuck on. With being on a heater would think this could have been prevented.
 
So Mike are you one of the 3 reported according to another Cobalt thread I have been following:

Here is the message that has just been posted:
***************
Hello, This is Les from Cobalt Aquatics. First off, we want to apologize for the failures of our heaters that you are reporting on this thread and thank you to everyone for the kind comments about our customer service.
As far as the heater failures,
We have had a few isolated incidents with heaters that have leaked epoxy, and although very dramatic with stinky smells and epoxy oozing from the casing, to our knowledge there have been no reports or claims that have contacted us for loss of livestock or property damage. We have been able to get a heater back with this failure and have had our engineers and quality departments examine the unit and have determined the cause of failure has to do with water getting into the casing and is a isolated issue and not a design or large scale production flaw. In the last 18 months, Cobalt has sold over 13,000 Neo’s with a grand total of 3 confirmed failures (someone on this thread said we told them 5, but the true # that have contacted us and have been confirmed is 3). That being said, we strive to build the best aquarium products for the money and take these isolated issues very seriously. We have thoroughly examined the failed sample and from the learnings, are making slight ch
anges to our manufacturing process to decrease the likelihood of this failure even more in the future. All of us at Cobalt are hobbyists and every employee's and all of our office tanks are using Neo’s with no issues. The Cobalt Team remains completely comfortable in recommending the Neo-Therm heaters to hobbyists. I hope this addresses your concerns. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to us directly at info1@cobaltaquatics.com or calling us at 803-591-9500. Although we try to watch the web for comments and threads like this, it is next to impossible to track everywhere and encourage people to contact us directly for the best customer service. Thank you for your interest and support of Cobalt!
 
Yes I am one of those 3. It was super tramatic as they say. Thought my house was on fire, and thats a lot being said I have 180 in the basement and I was sound asleep in my bedroom with the door closed that night. The heater is a great heater, and yes the ENTIRE heater is meant to lay flat under water. I purchased them for this reason. I planned on adding a frag rack of egg crate, and PVC in my sump and wanted the heater to lay as flat as possible under the racks. Luckily I had purchased 2 so I had the backup limping my tank along. Definately a great heater, but after this I still think my stainless steel heaters are much more reliable, but again I haven't had any issues like this with even a glass heater.
 
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Came home to my tank sitting at 68 degrees. my SECOND Neotherm heater failed. A lot of my SPS is all closed up and super faded. already dreading the worst. I have always kept 2 heaters in the tank, but at the moment I'm still waiting on my replacement heater that blew up. Didn't want to buy a 3rd heater since I was getting the first one replaced.

I'm super displeased. I went out and bought 2 titanium heaters. I've had a couple of those in another tank I've ran out of water, and simply abused and never had this issue. these heaters are quite simply the worst piece of garbage *and overpriced* I've ever come in contact with.

I'm in the Industrial end of HVAC and am a pipefitter. this kind of quality would be totally unacceptable!
 
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