i saw my temp was getting up to 82.8 so i decided to turn it down. its now at about 82. i try to aim for 80- 82.
what do u keep your temp at? i know some people keep below 80 and was wondering if one was better than the other( i know the temp ranges from like 78- 83 across the ocean).
brett, mine has gone from 78-79, where it’s been for minths up to 82+. i don’t want a chiller, so as ellen suggested, i bought a cheap clip on fan from walmart for $10, and put it so it would blow across the top of the h2o and so far, after 15 mins, the temp has gone down 1/2 degree almost at 81
is it the recent temperature swing outside causing this rise?
idk it could be.
If your thermometer typically reads lower then that and it just came up for a couple hours because your AC in your house was out or something then it could be a bad thing. My tanks usually sit around 80-82, and have been through swings higher, so my corals don’t stress. Someone that keeps there tank 77-78 and never swings as high as 80 would probably lose some animals with it getting up to 83. It all depends.
The perfect temperature for a reef tank is something that is always debated. If the tank is not used to temperature fluctuations and it gets 3-4 degrees above or below the norm there could be problems.
At this point however if you feel comfortable enough fragging animals you probably have some indicator species in your tank. You should probably be able to look into your tank and see if you have snails on their back corals that have their polyps retracted or discoloration on certain fish. So at this point it should be you who is telling us if your animals are ok.
If the temp is out of the norm, what is the norm and are you doing anything to prevent such fluctuations in the future.
Sorry if this is wordy or doesn’t make sense, last week was long and I’m beat.
Correct temps are a highly debated topic. I always try to keep my temps between 79-81 with 80 being my goal. With the warmer weather the past couple of days my tank hit 83 yesterday. I have a clip on fan that is plugged into my RK2 which is set to come on at 81 degrees. It could not keep up so when my tank hit 82.5 the RK2 shut down my lights. The temp never got any higher than 83 and all my fish and corals were just fine. I turned the AC on today and my temps stayed below 81.
This is one of the reasons that I like having a controller. I was out most of the day yesterday and had it not been for the controller my tank may well have reached dangerously high temps. I have never personally seen any stress at 83-85, but that is as high as any of my tanks has ever gotten.
I think that each tank is different with regards to how the inhabitants may handle the rise in temp. I have tons of flow and an over sized protein skimmer which I am sure helps.
my norm is usually 81. i have been messing around with the heater and it looks like the temp is at 80.5. i aim for anywhere between 80 and 82 and sometimes the lights take it up to 83(today)
the higher heat didnt seam to hrm anything but it is always safer than sorry.
i have a temp flux. of about 2 degrees.
to prevent the higher heat i have a bottle of frozen water and a huge fan (can never find the small fans, then again i nevr eally look lol)
I guess I should check my thermometer!
the store tanks were creeping yesterday. store itself was 85!!! had to kick on the A/C, and cooled it down nicely. only thing that showed any stress was the feeder goldfish.
well my temp seems to be sitting right around 82.5. nothing looks bad.
http://delreefclub.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=62
A reprint of a forum post with some good links
82.5 is Ok
In my opinion the higher temp is not a big deal. The big deal would be the depleted oxygen in the water when the temp is higher. This is no big deal either if your pumps are working. Put a high temp together with a power outage and you might have some serious problems.