Temperature

[PHphishPH]

I just set up my first salt aquarium a couple of days ago and I have a couple of questions. First, and my most important one is about the temperature in my tank. I cannot get the temp to drop below 78 degrees. I live in an apartment without air conditioning and I am worried that when it gets hot out, the tank will overheat. Right now it is 1:30 in the morning, cold outside, and the tank is at 78 degrees. What should I do about this? I don't want to buy any fish until I figure out how to keep a constant temperature going. It seems that the temperature in my little apartment is usually around 80 degrees, so I feel like I am fighting a useless battle. I guess I will leave it at that until I get that settled. Thanks a whole lot for your help.
Ryan

 

[Roach]

Well there are a couple of different routes you can take. The most efficient and the most expensive is of course to buy a chiller. My house usually stays around 79, so I have a couple fans blowing on the metal halide bulb and on the surface of the water...keeps the tank at around 77. The problem with fans is evaporation so you do have to top your water off a little more often. I bought the Kent float vavle from ReefGeek for about $50...it's the best piece of equipment I own...no more topping off everyday.

 

[Anonymous]

As you may have found out already, every source of reef info you look into is likely to give a different story about recommended temps. One thing most agree on, though, is that large fluctuations are not good. My house is around 80 deg. in the day, and with the bright MH's I had to install a chiller to keep things stable. I keep my reef in an 80-82 deg range, which is probably on the warm side compared to most systems.

 

[Anonymous]

My cooler season operating temp is 81. In the summer 83-84.

 

[Bobzarry]

Buy an AC. you can pick one up for about $125....a small price compared to what youl end up spending on your tank down the road. It will keep you and your tank cool. A small computer fan in the tanks hood (if you have one) will further aid the cooling process. I keep my tank at 80-82 year round...in fact I had to put my cooling fan on a temp controller to keep it from cooling too much.


Bob

 

[MarkO1]

My ambient temp is usually between 70 and 75º, but my reef is usually 10º higher on average mainly as a result of the lights. I don't start to worry about the temp in the tank unless it climbs above 86º.
_________________
Mercedes GLK Class

 

[DEADFISH1]

but aren't their some fish that like cold temperatures?

Recently when the weather outside got warmer my tank got warmer as well of course, the temp got up to 85 for a few day's, the Potters Angel that I have started to be less active and just hung around the bottom and back of the tank, I assumed that it must have been cooler their, my chromie's were not affected at all and neither were any of the other fish, but after I crank the hang on fan on and cooled things off a bit my Angel was swimming everywhere like normal, the temp is around 77 now and he seems to like it, what's interesting is that a few day's the temp got down to 74, it was one of those day's in Texas like today where yesterday it was 92 and today is 63 outside, I noticed that my Angel was spending a lot of time in front of the water outlet from the pump, I'm guessing that the water might be a bit warmer straight from the pump, just a egimicated guess though.

I do need a temp. controller for the fan, for day's like this, is there one that I can hook up to a clip on fan?

 

[xKEIGOx]

Roach, are you sure it's ok to use a fan aiming at the MH light? I heard that i will make the bulb get dimmer. It's surpose to be hot to achieve it maximum output. If it's got cool down constantly.. it's will then lost it power.

I have another problem little problem here that need some oppinion. I have one 25gal coral tank that have it temperature monitor by a reather cheap digital themometer. It;s always red at 28c and do get to 27c sometimes and in the nite. But today I saw it got 29c. And I got abit worried. SO I take out this normal mercury thermometer from my freshwater aquatic plant tank and put it in and got the reading 28c... which one should I believe in?

 

[Roach]

Well xKEIGOx the MH is part of a Custom Sealife Pendent that came with a fan on one end that blows over the bulb. I attached another (computer) fan to the other end to suck the hot air out of the pendent hood. I've never heard that cooling your bulbs(heh) was bad, but if I didn't do it then the temperature would really be high in my tank.
MattM, I've heard so many different stories on temperature but in most books I have read they usually say between 75-79 F. I've heard that letting it stay over 80 for long periods of time was really bad for the corals...over 85 being deadly after only a few hours. Is this totally wrong? It would be nice to get some clarification on this.

 

[EmilyB]

Actually, I've read that blowing the air across the bulbs is a bad idea. I will see if I can dig that up if no one else knows of it and posts.

 

[Anonymous]

hi.
The problem with blowing at the bulb is that the hot air need to be move away from the tank. If the hot air is directed at the water, you will have great evaporation, but no cool effect.

Use room temperature air to evaporatively cool the tank water, not hot air.

 

[MattM]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by DEADFISH:
<strong>but aren't their some fish that like cold temperatures?</strong><hr></blockquote>

Undoubtedly there are, but they are not endemic to shallow water coral reefs.

As to your angel, keep in mind what temperature he is used to. You could be seeing a reaction not to the temperature, but to the change in temperature.

85º is warm if you're used to 75º, but not if you are used to 83º.

 

[reefworm]

Catalina gobies like it colder - 70 degrees or less - where they live around Catalina Island, CA. Unfortunately, they usually are for sale at an LFS along with Caribbean/Indo-Pacific species that are used to the mid-80's. Guess what happens? I keep mind around 83~84. When I changed the temp of my tank from 76 up to the low 80's coral growth took off.

just in case there's anyone that hasn't read this article on salinity and temp, here we go again...

http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1997/nov/features/1/default.asp
-rw

[ May 02, 2002: Message edited by: reefworm ]</p>

 

[SPC]

Posted by Emily:
Actually, I've read that blowing the air across the bulbs is a bad idea. I will see if I can dig that up if no one else knows of it and posts.

-I have read this same thing but only pertaining to halides. The halides are supposed to run hot and this supposedly will shorten the life of them.
Steve

 

[MattM]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Roach:
<strong>I've heard that letting it stay over 80 for long periods of time was really bad for the corals...over 85 being deadly after only a few hours. Is this totally wrong? It would be nice to get some clarification on this.</strong><hr></blockquote>

It is certainly possible for temps over 85º to be deadly, if the coral is acclimated to 75º.

And, as I mentioned before, there are many, many books that recommend 78º. Do I think they are all incorrect? In a word, Yes.

We keep all 50+ tanks in the store in the 80-85º range and have tremendous growth of both SPS and soft corals. There are certain exceptions, like deep-water E. quadricolor anameones that prefer cooler temps, but even they thrive once acclimated. Once acclimated to this temperature, you will not see signs of stress until the temp rises above 90º. We know this one first-hand after a nasty heater failure on one of our show tanks. The corals improved immediately when it dropped back below 90º.

Here is the real-world data from the NOAA. These plots show sea surface temperature, but the temp in the tropics varies by less than 4º down to 100m (about 300 feet), so it is a very good representation of the environment our animals come from. (I can pull up 100m plots as well, and the temp is almost the same.)

Caribbean, July-Aug

Caribbean, Nov-Dec

Indo-Pacific, Jul-Aug

Indo-Pacific, Nov-Dec

The legends are all in ºC, but you can see that the coral reef areas range from 26º to 32º, depending on season and location.

26ºC = 78.8ºF
27ºC = 80.6ºF
28ºC = 82.4ºF
29ºC = 84.2ºF
30ºC = 86ºF
31ºC = 87.8ºF
32ºC = 89.6ºF

So if your goal is to replicate the environment that these animals came from (which it should be

), then your temperature should be in the mid 80's.

[ May 02, 2002: Message edited by: MattM ]</p>

 

[Roach]

Hey, thanks for all the info MattM. Maybe I'll start raising my temperature over the next couple of weeks to try it out. What kind of temperature increases should I do so that I can slowly acclimate everything?

 

[Anonymous]

MattM, thanks for the detailed post. Your illustrations show what the actual temperatures are (at) the natural reefs in the world. With this in mind, it appears that many of us spend way to much time and money trying to keep our reefs below 80 degrees. This does not appear to be necessary, according to the information you have provided.

I will be very interested if anyone refutes what you have posted with any real "scientific" data.

Thanks again Matt!

Louey

 

[MattM]

78º is too cold!

This temperature recommendation has been reprinted in books for years. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with reefs. That is the right temperature for freshwater tropical aquariums, based on the average temperatures in the Amazon basin.

Check the water temp of the coral reefs of the world - none of them get that cold. Indo-Pacific and Caribbean reef temperatures range from 79º to 90º.

We recommend reef tanks be kept in the 80º to 85º range. At colder temps the majority of the coral's metabolic energy is spent staying alive with little left over for reproduction and growth. Once they are acostomed to that temp range, corals do not show signs of stress until the temp rises above 90º.

 

[Tangy1]

Your tank will get hot without AC in your pad. However you're lucky that you're in CO. Because it's a drier climate you can really get the evaporation to help cool your tank.

Expose as much of your water surface to open air. Operate hoodless if you have to. Get a clip-on fan or a computer fan to blow fresh air across the top of tank.

Like already mentioned...just be prepared to top-off a lot.

 

[mrgoont]

According to the temp map it shows the Great Barrier reef coming in at around 26º or 27ºC in the summer months and around 24º to 25ºC in the winter. Based on that information it shows that the temps never really climb above 80ºF.

Now I dont know the locations of other reefs around the world so I cant comment on them.

And has anyone thought that the effects of global warming has played a part in raising the temps of the oceans a few degrees. It's hard to think that those temps are ideal based on facts that the worlds oceans are warmer than they have ever been.
So warm that a slab of ice the size of Rhode Island broke off of Antarctica. I dont see a problem keeping our tanks in the 78 to 82ºF range.