Anyone have a heater catch fire?

[Patrick M. Bodega Aquatics]

Hello! A few days ago I went to do the rounds with the evening feeding. When I walked up to my 75 gal I saw a flickering light on the wall opposite of the tank. I couldn't figure out what it was until I looked under the light on the heater and I saw flickering flames inside of the heater. The tank and the heater are not even a year old. Has this happened to anyone else? 

Thanks!

[Daniel]

Heaters are notoriously unreliable. If you keep fish long enough you are guaranteed to experience heater failure (although I will say, actual flames are surprisingly catastrophic).

I am glad you are safe!

[Ken Dyer]

That is nightmare inducing! Just one more reason to heat the room and never trust an aquarium heater. Where I do have to run them I always run under-sized and multiples just assuming one or more is going to fail on me. Multiple for when no longer produces heat, under sized so if it "sticks on" it can't cook my fish (have had both of these failure modes over the years).

[Daniel]

Inkbird heater controller are about $35 and represent a fairly inexpensive insurance policy. On the Dirted tank project all the heaters are controlled with a Neptune Apex. And as @Ken Dyer recommends, all my heaters are under-sized.

[Lee626]

This happened when I was young in my first ever aquarium and scared the heck outta me, I though my fish were being electrocuted. It’s one of the unfortunate flaws in the design of a standard heater, if two of those filaments get too close, they’re potentially gonna short out and arc. Provided the glass case isn’t breached your fish should be okay if you catch it early. Over 10 years later I’m still super heater paranoid 😂 I always keep a couple of spares. Like previously stated, heaters are just notoriously unreliable, when you think how many times it potentially cycles on and off in its life, it’s only a matter of time before something goes bad.

[Bean]

No it’s never happened to me but you got me worried now

[Coronal Mass Ejection Carl]

So this isn't how they're supposed to work?

[Patrick M. Bodega Aquatics]

11 hours ago, Daniel said:

Heaters are notoriously unreliable. If you keep fish long enough you are guaranteed to experience heater failure (although I will say, actual flames are surprisingly catastrophic).

I am glad you are safe!

Thanks! I live next to one of the town that had all of the west coast fires in Sothern Oregon so it was a bit of a wakeup call. On the bright side, If something were to happed, I had plenty of water to put it out!

[classicshooter]

I've never had this happen to me, but because of the lack of reliability for most heaters I have slowly been removing them from my tanks. In fact I currently only have one with a heater, and planning on removing it in the next few days. 

[Streetwise]

I have learned from Daniel's thread that a flaming heat source would be historically accurate!

 

[Coronal Mass Ejection Carl]

1 hour ago, Streetwise said:

I have learned from Daniel's thread that a flaming heat source would be historically accurate!

 

Might need a slate bottom tank but glass might work. Acrylic, definitely not.