self induced heater problem!

It looks like my corals will make it but I'm so bummed at myself. I unplugged my heater in the nano Monday eve for a water change and just realized tonight that I forgot to plug it back in! The temp was only 70!! My controller screen wasn't quite right and then temp wasn't displayed. I really should have caught that in a much shorter time time but we have just been so busy and I guess things have been good with temp since setting the controller up that I sort of took that for granted. Just thought I'd share. We really do need to try to spend a bit of time daily with our tanks.

Whoops! Glad everything is ok at least. My heater in my nps tank started looking discolored, like water had gotten inside so I tossed it. But the only other small heater I had on hand was a new one I'd bought but didn't realize is preset to 78, warmer than I would like and I was checking the tank like crazy the first day making sure it didn't roast my tank. I've both froze and baked my guppy tank lately so am super paranoid about something happening to a tank with way more expensive livestock.

I think I posted this before but I had problems keeping my NPS tank the right temp during the really cold snap.  It's been a lot better for me since I put in a heater too big for the tank and put it on a controller.  The smaller heater just couldn't keep up when it was really cold in our house.  Funny thing is that same little heater is in a 5g bucket curing rock and it seems too warm in there.  Go figure. 

Sometimes, I just have to slow down and pay attention.  That is the moral of the story I told with not plugging my heater back in. 

It would be nice if someone would chime in about something dumb they have done so I don't feel so bad.  LOL  I guess GP, you did confess to baking and freezing guppies but somehow, that doesn't seem like as big of an offense.  Ha!  Don't get me wrong, guppies are my fav freshwater fish.

Just wondering? why do you turn your heater off when you do a water change? do you do that big of a water change your heater gets exposed? and the reason just talking outside the box but, could it be that your smaller heater is keeping up in the 5 gal bucket better then it did in your nano is because your heater in the 5 Gal bucket is under more water movement then it was in the Nano?

It could be because there's more flow in the bucket, I suppose. I think it's because it's really only about 3g of water in the bucket when you factor in the rock vs a 15g tank.

And yeah, I did a big water change. I usually don't need to unplug the heater. I burned up a heater once by exposing it during a w/c and so now I'm overly cautious. The heater wasn't actually exposed this time either so really I did more damage by unplugging it.