So, I woke up this morning to my thermometer on my tank beeping at me… it had been doing it off and on yesterday, but only because I had the high temp alarm set to 82.5 degrees and we have been running without the AC on the past few days, and yesterday was one of those days without any type of air movement so the house got a little stuffy, but nothing to be worried about, so I just kept checking it.
BUT… this morning, when I woke up to the beeping the tank said 86.4 degrees!!! Yes, eighty-six point four degrees. I don’t know if anything is dead, but I put about 8 lbs of ice in the first section of my sump and then put about 1/3 of a gallon of water out of my cold water tap (Not RO Water since its room temp).
The ambient temp in the house was something like 78 degrees, so there is no way that my one little refugium light caused the temp to go that high, and my main tank lights had not been on yet. I believe that my heater on my sump may have either gone bad and did not turn off… I have unplugged it until the temp in the tank stabilizes and then I am going to plug it back in to see what it does.
Hopefully everything is ok. Contrary to popular belief 86 isn’t that bad. There have been reefers that havbe allowed their tanks to get up to 88 without any issues, it seems the largest singular factor is that they allowed the tank to fluctuate in temperature a fair amount instead of fighting to keep it at a steady 78 degrees.
A short term temperature spike hopefully did not do too much damage. I would actually be more concerned with dropping the temperature too fast or having a blast of ice water wash over the corals.
Be sure to check your salinity levels after adding that much ice.
I agree with CDangel0 about being concerned with dropping temp too fast. Maybe you could keep the lights off for a while, depending on what kind of lighting you are using, if they give off alot of heat. I have the same thing happen in my house when we keep the a/c off. Also try running the fans to cool off the tank gradually. The outside temps today are supposed to be cooler than yesterday, so that will help.
[quote=“ihuntinde, post:1, topic:2096”]
I have unplugged it until the temp in the tank stabilizes and then I am going to plug it back in to see what it does.[/quote]
You might try placing the heater in a 5G bucket of water (or larger container, if you have one) and see if it’s OK there before you put it back into the tank.
some people really freak out when they see over 80 degrees, i run my tank at 82 constantly and it peak at 84 in the day if i dont run my ac. the fiji reefs see 86-87 degrees naturaly in the summer… well their summer
my halides/heaters got my 20 gallon nano up to 87 in the summer when i wasnt running an ac to save on power. all my sps lived. i dropped the temp gradually without adding any ice or anything. all was fine. corals are more affected by temp swings in the down direction than the up direction. dropping 2 degrees is more detrimental than raising 2 degrees(quickly).
Yes reefs can stand elevated temps for a short while. but the temp is not the only determining factor on coral survival. ORP or oxygen content plays a big part too, keeping the reef creatures ventilated and breathing well… so increased oxygenation during high temp peiriods cant hurt. and help vent CO2 and reduce acidity.
Also if you are questioning the heater remove it till it is tested. Always have an extra heater in case of emergency. I agree with Ted about testing the unit in a bucket. Buy a new heater its a small price compared to everything in your tank
Thanks for the concern and advice. When I added the ice, I made sure to add it to the very first section of the sump, which is about 10 gallons of water I figure. I did not add it all at once, as it may have sounded, but more like about 3 or 4 handfulls about every 10 minutes. So by the time it actually melted and the cold water mixed, after going through my 7 gallon refugium the overall temp drop was about 2 degrees over about a 1 hour period and by noon the water temp was around 80 degrees.
As for the heater, I cleaned it off, had quite a bit of algae and other “refugium growth” on it. I did test it in a bucket of water before putting it back in the tank. I noticed that as soon as i plugged it in, while it was still a little wet, it IMMEDIATELY heated up very very hot and started steaming the water off. So I tried to turn the dial down, but it wouldn’t turn past 81 degrees. With a little more force it kind of “snapped” past it and freed pretty easily. I think what may have happened was the thermostat was stuck in the ‘on’ position and the heater thought it was still too cold, so it just stayed on. I ended up putting the heater back in the sump after letting it turn on and off for about an hour, and as of this morning, my temp is back where I like it, about 79.4 degrees.
Over the summer it did sneak up to about 82 degrees a few times, but I didn’t pay much attention, it was very humid and hot outside.
Regardless, everything is still alive and kicking. I have also added to my daily or semi-daily routine just to check that thermostat dial to make sure it isn’t getting stuck. I have also oriented the heater so that at a quick glance I can tell whether it is on or off, and if my thermometer is above 80 and it is still on, I will make sure to keep a closer eye on it.
My personal reccomendation - both from reading too many horror stories and experiencing one of my own - would be to replace the heater. if it stuck in the “on” position once it will probably do it again. It’s fine if you’re in the house and can watch it, but what happens while you’re at work or school? And decide to go out afterwards?
A heater stuck in the “on” position all day can easily heat up a tank well past it’s “safe” limits and can literally cook everything in it.
Please consider replacing the heater with a new one.
Agree with most of what has been said before, but consider buying two heaters instead of one. If you need 100W to heat the tank consider buying two 75W heaters vs one 100W. Then if one of them fails either way it won’t be as big of a disaster then if you had one 100W. In my largest system I actually use three heaters though over the summer months I removed one. Just an idea I thought I’d add.
yeah I think I have decided to get a new heater. I’d actually like to find one (or two) that will fit a little better into my sump. right now, my sump is only about 16" tall and the heater is about 18" tall with the low water line at about 14", which would be make my actual water line about 2" too low. This means i have to put the heater it at a pretty steep angle from the back of the sump up towards the front of the sump.
Anyone have any recommendations for the brand of heater I should be looking for?
[quote=“ihuntinde, post:16, topic:2096”]
Anyone have any recommendations for the brand of heater I should be looking for?[/quote]
Asked that question a million times to a million different people and received a million different answers. Just about any of them are capable of failing at one point or another. There is a couple of brands I have found on ebay which I think are horrible, but they are only found on ebay and you won’t find any in LFS anymore. I personally use mostly Marineland Stealth Submersible Heaters.
just like jon said, they all have one horror story or another… BUT ime, i have had more stealths than anything brought into the store with the wires melted from the top of the heater body. even had one go bezerk in one of my cichlid tanks. just got stuck on… 95 degrees and 16 dead africans later, u get the idea.
