exploding heater

[kona]

I just wanted to mention that I had a Rena Cal Top Light Excel 150 W, aquarium heater and recently it just exploded.
I was sitting on my computer when I hear a loud pop. I looked over at the tank and the bottom portion of the heater, the area with the coils and ceramic had shattered. A large hunk of the glass was laying on the bottom.
I was really surprised that nothing in the tank had been electrocuted. Anyway, I just wanted to know if anyone else had this kind of experience.

 

[eg_hatch]

Was the heater above the water line?

 

[kona]

no, the heater was well within the submerge line.
It wasn't touching any glass or rock either.

 

[thomas712]

I suggest getting the WON Pro heat titanium heater, and you will never have to worry about broken glass again.

 

[saltymist]

Originally posted by kona
I was sitting on my computer
Why were you sitting on your computer?

J/K
In all seriousness, I've had only one heater explode, but it was more like a crack, fizzle pop, but it was an ebo jaeger heater which are supposed to be good heaters, so I guess every brand has their problems.
What I found in the past was that some of my fishy were swimming by the heater and would dart out across the tank and swim fine, but every time they got close to the heater (not the ebo heater described above, but different situation), they would dart away from it. I looked at the heater and it looked fine, but it kept happening, I finally unplugged it, let it cool down a bit and pulled it out to find that it had a crack in it. The story being that it didnt electrocute the whole tank, but rather would shock the fish when they got reasonably close to the heater, this was on a 55 gallon tank.