I made an absolutely boneheaded mistake and I knew better. The mistake was compounded and could have been fatal for my family. Hopefully this might help someone else in the future.
I know that you should never place a heater in the return section of your sump. This is the first place to run dry if something happens!
I got a huge ball of chaeto from a fellow reefer and decided to QT it in an old Jbj nano cube I had in the attic.
I proceeded to set it up and guess where I stuck the heater???? Yup, the return side of the cubes “sump” in the back. Didn’t even occur to me that this is the sump.....
With this cube, the water level can drop below the sump baffle section pretty quick. Well that happened last night......
How was this compounded? It’s a titanium heater without thermostat and I have the temp probe in the OTHER chamber. So what happened? The temp probe fell below the set temp and the heater stayed on. This caused the water in the return section to completely evaporate out and the heater to stay on...
when I checked on it this morning I heard the pump running dry so I poured some RO water in. Then I heard the sound you never want to hear: water boiling when it hits the heater....
Thankfully nothing caught fire but this could have been deadly.
Many new reefers might not know this and even old reefers like me can still make these stupid mistakes. Definitely not telling my wife!
I know that you should never place a heater in the return section of your sump. This is the first place to run dry if something happens!
I got a huge ball of chaeto from a fellow reefer and decided to QT it in an old Jbj nano cube I had in the attic.
I proceeded to set it up and guess where I stuck the heater???? Yup, the return side of the cubes “sump” in the back. Didn’t even occur to me that this is the sump.....
With this cube, the water level can drop below the sump baffle section pretty quick. Well that happened last night......
How was this compounded? It’s a titanium heater without thermostat and I have the temp probe in the OTHER chamber. So what happened? The temp probe fell below the set temp and the heater stayed on. This caused the water in the return section to completely evaporate out and the heater to stay on...
when I checked on it this morning I heard the pump running dry so I poured some RO water in. Then I heard the sound you never want to hear: water boiling when it hits the heater....
Thankfully nothing caught fire but this could have been deadly.
Many new reefers might not know this and even old reefers like me can still make these stupid mistakes. Definitely not telling my wife!
