Temp swings

[Anonymous]

Anybody know what the actual symptoms would be for corals irritated by temp swings?

I've been letting my nano swing from 72 - 79, everything seems happy, so I'm not making an attempt to control the swing. The corals & fish seem fine, polyp extention looks great, lps actively feeding.

I used to let my old 10g swing from 80-87, had a 175w halide, and lots of lps/sps, but this tank i'm letting drop pretty low, if growth slows that's ok by me.

L8r mega

 

[Canada_Dry]

Even if you don’t seem to see any stress on your live stock, a temp swing from 72-79 seems pretty harsh, especially for a nano system. The swing in temp would be much faster in a small nano, compared to a large tank. I think I would be looking to finding the cause of the temp swing and fix it, although it may not appear to be harming your live stock, it can’t be doing them any good either.

 

[Anonymous]

Not to mention that I've been under the impression for the last decade and a half that temperature swings like that (especially so HIGH! 8O) are part of the trouble with coral bleaching linked to El Nino.

 

[Anonymous]

On my old 10g, I had temp swings just as bad, but going 80-87 instead of 72-79, and the corals grew like mad, I had the tank setup about 1.5 years, then I upgraded to a 20g long.

So far no bleaching, if anything looks stressed I would turn up the heater, for now I have not seen any reason to address the swing, I've got a catalina gobie, which is why I let the temps go so low.

I too have read that swings are bad, all over in fact, but yet both systems I've let swing, have had no trouble, as of right now, I'm still not convinced that the swings are that detremental, I've seen plenty of articles (dbw's temp research in the library) that show quite a daily swing on natural reefs.

Some of Shimek's lectures sugest that corals can handle lower temps, but everything slows down, there's a formula used on it, for reptiles, I forget the ratio, but a 1-2 degree increase makes a big difference on growthrates. However, on this tank, slow growth is better than fast, I went down the nano road years ago, and you quickly run out of space!

I've also read that the low temps that used to be advocated were simply prolonging a corals death, but if corals are still showing growth I woudl disagree with that.

And I've seen plenty of posts on the boards over the years, in fact I've told people big swings are bad too. If somebody's having trouble one of the first things I ask, after finding out parameters is "what's the temp swing?" But on a stable (biologically) healthy system, is it really bad? I really have not seen any sign of it hurting anything on my nano.

I even had xenia in the old 10g and the stuff never cared if it was 86+!

 

[Anonymous]

Consider natural conditions: what have these creatures evolved to deal with? Because of the vast volume of the ocean, temperature swings as large as what you're describing are rare events indeed.

A temperature of 72F is VERY high for a Catalina goby, too. They are best kept in temperate waters, 55F-65F (with occasional highs into 70F--but the waters here, to my recollection, almost never get higher than 70F--very unusual).

So, you're not experiencing any negative effects, this is surprising, but it is what it is, right? Document, please, as this kind of information is always helpful. Clearly, there are many other variables at work here.

 

[Anonymous]

>A temperature of 72F is VERY high for a Catalina goby, too

I thought the water temp they are collected from hit 72 during warm months!?!?

I'm also confused as to why you say these types of swings are rare, it's very well documented all over, maybe i'm reading the wrong articles?!?!?!?

http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/d_ ... 11898.html

http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/d_ ... summer.gif

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/re ... ature.html

Quote from shimek..
>Fluctuations are really not a problem - in some higher latitudinal reefs the fluctuations are enormous. There are data from Johnson Atoll, showing fluctuations on the order of 20 deg F in a single day (from about 72 deg to about 92 deg), and guess what... The reef's still alive...

Perhaps you could share some articles that contradict the above, I'm documenting the tank well, finally getting around to doing another website, and I'll link to any supporting or contradicting data..

L8r mega

 

[Anonymous]

Seamaiden?

 

[reefsnreptiles1]

Personally, I have heard far too many accounts of temp swings causing losses in captive reefs to say that they are ok. Especially with SPS. I have read/heard stories of complete/nearly complete losses from temps rising too high in a tank due to a faulty heater etc.

I think that most would agree that stability is the name of the game in reefs in regards to most parameters (ph, temps, salinity etc).

Best of luck!

Brian

 

[LA-Lawman]

I have got a 90g.. I have the heater set at 76.5F and the chiller set at 78.6F so about a 2 degree swing..... I guess that isn't too bad. I would like to get a chiler that did both functions.. heating and cooling. I think that would provide a more stable system than having to rely on two seperate devices to control the tank.

 

[Len]

Hey Mega, if it works for you, don't fix it I've found temp swings to be more detrimental to fish's health the corals. My experience is that after I installed my chiller and maintained my temperature with a max deviation of 2 degrees, my fish (tangs especially) were less prone to disease. My corals couldn't care either way as far as I could tell.

I respectfully disagree with Ron in his conclusion. What works in the wild does not necessarily work in capivity. Because our systems are already so comporomised compared to their natural counterpart, some stresses that organisms can tolerate on wild reefs might not be tolerated well in captive systems. Temperature swings for fish is one example amongst many I've come across.

 

[brandon4291]

Mega Id have to agree that its all in your polyp activity...if you notice your polyps retracted abnormally then Id say that low temp would be a prime suspect, but if the corals are accustomed to it then its par for the captive course and it may not bother them.

Also, if you noticed many books about wild corals remark about space competition--allelopathy and chemical/nematocyst wars to compete for vital space. This is why you typically hear to keep your softs far away from LPS/SPS to avoid turf wars and nasty chemical battles between the two specimens. I, for one, have observed an opposite reaction in many coral specimens--with acclimation these animals can share a very small water column without irritation (though not necessarily touching). Once again Id say its a matter of acclimation to the particulars of a given system...IMO corals are amazingly adaptive in the captive reef, especially if many other factors are well-accounted for such as light, Ca+, Alk, salinity etc.

IIRC for every ten degrees in temp rise there is an effective doubling of metabolic rate. Not sure if it works in the reverse but we'll find out in future replies to this post especially if Randy H. Farley gets a hold of it.

Brandon