What Temperature is Your Tank?

[iamjosh]

I'm thinking a fan blowing across the top of the tank may be needed in the summer.. Atleast I'm guessing that will keep temps down.

-j

 

[northstaraquatics]

I have a hard time keeping the tank above 75 deg in the winter even with 4 250 watt heaters running. Summer rarely gets above 78...

Jon

 

[iamjosh]

Northstar(jon) - How big is your tank? how cold do you let your house get durring winter months?

-j

 

[CurvBall]

My tank stays in the 80-82 region. I have a large fan blowin' over the surface when the halide comes on. But with Feb here, summer in Durban (South Africa) is killer, had to keep the halide off yesterday and added a 2nd fan! Tank went upto 84-85! I run the tank open top too, small tank, 20G long... chiller is on the horizon though, I hope.

 

[Ed Hahn]

I have heard time and time again, the lower the temperature the more oxygen content. My questions is How will more oxygen affect the growth of corals?

 

[WaterDogs]

I was told 78F was the best temp for reef tanks, mine is at 81F and doing well, the one time I tried going down lower the fish got sick so I raised the temp back and the fish are fine.

I do run a chiller because our house gets very hot in the summer.

Dwaine

 

[Illusion]

I run a 1/2hp Pacific Coast chiller on my 224g tank... My temp runs from 77.8 to 79.4 I do not let it get any higher and so far the Chiller does its jobe extremely well.. I feel the chiller was needed as it comes on even now in the winter months... Not as often but it does..

James

 

[JHReef]

I run ~77-79 on my tanks. My 180 has a chiller but it only comes on on the hottest of days. My 20 has never had chiller, but I did upgrade from NO florescent to PC lights so who knows now. It depends on your climate, the set-up of your system, and how well your house is insulated, or how much you are willing to spend on heating/ac to control room temp.

 

[uwscotch]

A couple of things I have noticed. A temp of 81-82 degrees results in rapid development of my clownfish larvae. Instead of hatching simultaeously on D8, 1/3 hatch in the wee hours at the beginning of D8, continue to hatch throughout the day since they can no longer fit in the egg, and the remaining 1/3 hatch the night of D8. A real pain to catch larvae. I put the tank back down to 78-79 degrees and all is right as rain. 1 hr after lights out on D8, all hatch together. Interesting comment Ed, I have also heard that a higher temp lowers Oxygen, no doubt this is true, but whether this has any real effect on coral growth, etc, I do not know. As a side note, an overheated tank ie 90+ degrees will drive out a considerable amount of gas from the water. 3-4 weeks later, and a few of my LPS still have internal air bubbles that have not redissolved or been able to be force out. Its a coral version of "the bends".

 

[dgasmd]

My sump is in the garage. Summers are the closest thing to hell in S. FL. Now, it is pretty cool and with the garage door opened and a fan blowing int he garage, the temp is staying around 80F. I added the 2 HP Pacific Coast Chiller and got it running last week. It has a 2 degree swing controller, so I set it at 81F. My swings will be 81-83 degrees. I will turn this down one degree though.

So long as you sturate the water properly with oxygen, wich most of us do with a fiarly good skimmer, this should not be an issue. Especially with larger water volumes.

 

[spongebob lover]

I voted less than 76 because as soon as my lights go off, my tank comes down to 75-72 but then when the lights go on its up to 76-78

 

[scrummyotool]

a good read
http://rshimek.com/reef/tempsal.htm

 

[WaterDogs]

Anthony Calfo in one of his books recommends 76*F - 80*F with a target of 78*F.

 

[Jonathan G.]

i use the 350w won bros titanium, put the heater in my wet/dry right where the intake comes in and have the probe in the center back bottom of my tank. my digital thermometer reads a temp that ranges from 79.3-79.9

 

[NaH2O]

One comment about high temperatures. Increased temperatures means increased metabolisms, which means increased food requirements, which means increased waste production, etc. Also, doesn't the ocean reef, even with high temperatures, have cooler water currents come through, and other upwellings that we can't provide in the closed environment?

 

[scrummyotool]

Reading the articles in full those temps. are averages for depths down to I believe 100-300 ft. This would do alot with are corals (sps) wild collected or captive and what regions are the native to. Some of the most colorful sps were those that were exposed to extreme sun and heat due to the fact when the tide goes out. Looking at one of the recent coral magazines. I have a friend who freaked out when his frag tank hit high temps. These corals looked their best I was shocked, so I did some research and found this article which raised some concern. Im setting up a new tank acrylic,coast to coast,ocean motion 8 way 48x30x30 with twin 400 watters 6500ks with vho supplement light, So I wont be able to try this until this fall

 

[spongebob lover]

wwwooouu last night my tank went crazy hehe !!
usually my tank's temperature is around 72-75 and when the lights are on, its at 76-78, but last night i really didn't know what happened all of a sudden my tank was up to 86 !!
i was freaking out because i didn't know what to do and this is the first time something like this happens to me, so i turned off my lights, the water heater, the skimmer and i opened the windows, my boyfriend told me to put an ice bag where i have my pump and the skimmer i didn't do it because i was afraid something would happened because of that, now my question is, can we do that? or if it something like this happens again, what can i do to make the temperature drop a little?

 

[mojoreef]

Sure you can Gabrirla.

Scrummy their is no correlation between color pigments in corals and high temps. Coral pigments are proteins which are brought to dominance through light wave color and energy. Temp is really not a direct player in the game. With sudden spikes in temp. or at high levels the coral will release a heat stress enzyme which will cause all the zoox with in the coral to bail out and thus bleach and die. Running a tank at a temp level of 86 does not allow for much room if their is a problem in the tank. Also what Nikki said is dead on to, speeding up a corals metabolism just adds more stress to the coral and makes it more susceptible to problems. I guess this would explain why Ron has killed every tank he has kept?

Mike

 

[scrummyotool]

Which Ron are you speaking of as I know a few of them. Schimek if he's the one your speaking of I was unaware of his kill ratio as I was just referencing this article. I wasnt implying that I would run at 86F I was going to try for the area of 82F-84F as I run 79F currently on my 125gal. I was wanting to do the new set up this way by running the next system on one that duplicates the enviroment cloudy days and swings in temperature of as they are in the wild. I was raising the speculation on that fact that many of these sps are out of the water in the low tide only recieving a splash or wave going over them and they're exposed to the direct sunlight. This picture can be seen in Coral magazine vol 1 # 6 or 7. Just some food for thought or a explaination as why these seem to have alot of color is it the stress from this, water temperature I dont know I was looking to learn something from this if someone can explain this. I am not a expert on this subject and I have to learn from others failures or my own . Just my 2 cents

 

[mojoreef]

Yea thats the Ron. The colors that our sps our mainly come from the pigments with in the tissue. These pigment serve several purposes, some absorb light, some absorb and then reflect a usuable light back to the Zoox, some are used as UV protectorants. The situation you are refering to have corals that in being exposed to direct sunlight have developed dominant pigments to protect themselves from the UV being bombarded down on them. They also use heavy sliming to keep themself moist while exposed.
I have seen tanks run at high temps before but have yet to see solid reasoning behind it. For me it just keeps your corals riding the edge. Becareful on the temp swings also as in the wild simple swings of 2 degrees C have created massive bleaching events.


hope it helps


Mike