broken heater - water no longer good?

[lion_crazz]

As the title states, my heater broke in my water change good water bucket. I have had this happen before, but since it was always a small amount of water, I always threw the water out. Since this is so much more water, I would hate to waste all the water and salt. I don't even know what happened, but the explosion must have been bad because the heater was outside the trashcan on the floor of my basement.
However, there is nothing in the bucket - particle-wise. The water is still crystal clear and it does not test for anything. Could the water still be good? Does anyone have experience with something like this?

 

[marka1620]

Better be safe than sorry....toss the water. You have no idea what chemicals/metals the thing put in your water.
I had a glass heater in my display tank and watched it crack. It then began filling with water and started sparking and burning. I quickly reached my hand in (stupid move) and pulled it out. Fortunately. I wasnt zapped and my tank was fine. After that, my next heater was a hard plastic type (Stealth brand...I think).

 

[puffer32]

I think the only thing that could be in the water would be glass fragments, and they would sink to the bottom. I had this happen to me yrs ago and I didn't even realize the heater was broke because i had unplugged the heater but left it in the 30 gal bucket of water until i had pumped out about 20 gal of it. I didn't use the rest and found afew large pieces of glass laying at the bottom, but none was floating.

 

[maxalmon]

Don't they use copper elements wound around the ceramic tip to produce the heat effect? or is it zinc, I would think that when the initial explosion started there was some type of vaporization of the element and that it was released into the water...I would toss the entire batch, look at what happened to Steve Weast tank when he thought it would be OK to use the declorinator, sad, sad....My rule is this,...If I have to question my self about if it's OK, then it's NOT"

 

[peckhead]

is it possible it didnt break in the bucket since it was on the floor when u found it? i have seen people take glass heaters out of the water with it plugged in and they usually explode if they dont have some sort of auto shut off.

 

[lion_crazz]

Okay, well, I ended up not using the water. I looked at it and though it looked fine, I did not want to risk anything.
peckhead, I know it broke in the bucket because I was down in the basement when this all occurred and more or less watched/smelled it happen. The burning smell was very strong, and the glass encasing was left in the bucket while the springs and the top of it exploded so hard that they shot right out of the bucket and from the encasing.
Thanks for everyone's input!

 

[jennythebugg]

so you were there when it just shot out of the bucket ? you're lucky you didn't get any shrapnel from it .

 

[lion_crazz]

The weird part was that I did not see when it shot out of the bucket, but I smelled it while it began burning and minutes before it happened, the heater started flashing alternating lights of green and red, which caused my water in the trash can to be that color since it was darker in the basement.

 

[jennythebugg]

psychodelic !!! at least you got a show out of it !

 

[lion_crazz]

Yes, it was very creepy.