Has anyone had any failures with Eheim Thermofilters. Last year on my Eheim pump the seal for the heating element went and mercifuly no harm was done as the residual circuit breaker tripped. However yesterday my Eheim thermostat failed overnight and wiped out my entire collection of tropicals apart from 4 angels, 2 kissing gouramis 2 red rainbows and 1 royal plec. So I'm sure you can imagine the sense off loss I feel for some rare fish i had. Green Phantom Plec, Blue Phantom Plec, halfroyal/halfspot plec, Clown loaches XXL Bosemani Rainbows, Australian Rainbows Blue Rainsbows Denisoni's all decent sizes - this just list's a few, but a loss of over 40 fish of which I've had for years has been very painful for me. I have spoken to John Allan who informed me it is rare for such a failure. However dealers that I have spoken to have said this is not so uncommon. I now as cosequence mistrust Eheim products, and have gone back to a hagen juwel heater, until a more reliable heater becomes available or if anyone knows of such a device. Are there alarms that can be purchased to sound if the aquarium goes outside of a temerature band width that one could predetermine.
Rgrds Nige........
If anyone has a blue phantom plec or half spot/half royal plec that is looking for a new home please get in touch 01737773138 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - I live near Gatwick in Surrey

I'm sorry to hear that Nigel, that's obviously the filter you got of me? I can imagine that you're very upset, I know you were very fond of your fish, especially the clown Loach. I think it's only the wet dry filters that have the internal heaters and thermometers so we better make that clear to people who have got Eheim filters.

I have got 2 2028 Eheim filters and touch wood, they haven't given me any problems whatsoever.

Anyway, very sorry once again

I would alway recommend you use 2 heaters incase one fails.if you choose the right size heater even if it gets stuck on it shouldnt over heat your tank. you didnt say if it cooked them or just died and the cold killed them?? very sorry anyway.

The thermostat on my Eheim filter stuck on and took the temperature up to 40 degrees c - I immmediatley netted fish still alive and put them into the quarantee tank at correct temperature - I didn't bother to gradually equalize the temperature as I'm sure that as the fish were in distress already it was kinder to cool them instantly to 28 degrees c which is still the upper limit to what they should be. By doing that I just lost one additionaL to what was already desceased in the aquarium. The failure is the THermostat and not the heater itself. I will never trust another Eheim thermostat, and have reverted to the integral heater on my Juwel internal filter. In fact I may not even bother to heat the aquarium as for some reason with the pumps moving the water around seems to maintain the temperature of around 28 degrees anyway. As long as our ambient house temerature remains at 20 degrees c I have found never to heat the water anyway, so why you may ask why did I have the Eheim heater on, well it was just there to maintain stable temperature if the house got cold, . How wrong I was - thermostat failure never came into the equation. having done a bit of research now apparently it is not that uncommon for these Eheim stats to fail.

Thanks Penn for your condolences - devasted is one word - it is strange I feel to blame - was it my fault I don't know but I did not sleep well over this. I guess now I'll pick myself up dust myself down and start again - 3 of my plecs were rare as well - I may have sourced one but am still looking for a blue phantom - L-128. I'll start over with my clowns - I know how to get them to grow. I also had some large Denisoni's which had grown well form juveniles as well as my rainbows - especially Bosemani's all I can say is crap happens. Forgot to mention Penn the medical condition I have was finally diagnosed as RA rhuematoid arthritus and is reasonably controlled by medication.

sorry ot hear about your loss. i know from personal experience the time it takes to grow demasonis to a large size. i have 2 now and started with 7. i even added 3 later and the dominate male killed them all.

Hi I am surprised about your Denisoni - I had 6, some large and 2 smaller and they all got on well, I have plenty of plant (plastic) for them to hide if required. Denisoni like clean well filtered water so if your Nitrates creap up that is when problems can start. Also my Denisoni liked fast moving water so with 3 power heads (2 fluval and 1 jewel they were happy - that is until things got too hot!! denisoni are river fish so this is probably why they liked the water moving around. They also got on well with my rainbows.

I am now worried, i bought a second hand tank a couple of years ago and it came with an eheim filter that has a heater in it (it is not a wet/dry type). Just how common is this sort of failure where the heater fails on. I am considering turning the heater element of and putting my spare heater in the tank