temp swings

[buleetu]

hi all

i just set up my mh light there last week, and ever since ive being having temp swings, the temp is 26.0 with lihgts off and by the end of the light cycle at 11 its up to 27.8

any ideas i dont have the money for a chiller

is there a diy way of making one

 

[trido]

A small fan blowing across the top of the water will work wonders in most cases. For others that is 78-82F. A four degree F. temp swing isnt ideal but not the end of the world. I dont have a chiller either. ON the very warm summer days when my tank start reaching 83 I turn off the MH and call it a cloudy day on the reef. You could always buy a small window AC to cool that particular part of the house if it becomes necessary.

 

[buleetu]

thanks trido

thanks aswell for all the help u gave me in the planning stages of this tank

its turned out really well

durso is working great and the weir is taking the right amount of water into the chamber

 

[buleetu]

it looks well doesnt it

im just trying to work out the buggs now, the temp swinging and i have to keep refilling the sump every day with about 1 litre of ro water, so im looking into making an auto top off

 

[S!mon]

I have started dripping kalk in place of top offs. It's a little more work than just filling the sump but I think it's worth it.

 

[Anonymous]

Add a fan to the top of the tank. Maybe get a temp controller to turn the fan on as needed. With the fan though you will have more evaporation so you will need to get an auto top off

 

[Anonymous]

A small fan blowing across the top of the water will work wonders in most cases. For others that is 78-82F. A four degree F. temp swing isnt ideal but not the end of the world. I dont have a chiller either. ON the very warm summer days when my tank start reaching 83 I turn off the MH and call it a cloudy day on the reef. You could always buy a small window AC to cool that particular part of the house if it becomes necessary.

My reef tanks were always kept at 83 when I lived in California. A, this a perfectly normal, natural reef temp. And B, when I DID have heat spike to 84 or 85, this tank didn't notice. :wink:

 

[buleetu]

i have always kept my tank at 26, i had a bigger tank down stairs for 1 year and i never had a bother with temp swings, it was 180 litres though so thats why it never became an issue

the new tank is 19 gallons with a 6 gallon sump, it was going fine until i put my halide light in to use and now the temp is swing nearly 2 degrees during the light cycle, its an ideal temp for a reef but the temp on a real reef wouldnt swing 2 degrees over the day would it, so this has to be a bad thing thats gonna mess with the stability of my tank, my six lined wrasse looks to be acting weird already , he is swimming to the top of the tank and then down again to the sand bed, ive never seen him do this before and i have him 6 months or so,

i am also having a diatom problem, i havent seen a diatom since last june, is the mh light doing this or is it because i recently moved all the live rock from my big tank into the new one, is this a mini cycle happening here, my readings are the exact same as they have being for months now

nh4 0
no2 0.05
no3 10
ph 7.88 8.02 at lights out
po4 0.1
sg 1.025

these are the buggs im talking about

the temp seems to be the major problem for the minute so ill have to get some fans, when i do ill stick the heater to 26.5 and se if i can get a stable 27

then ill work on the top off

 

[Snowboarda42]

topping off kalk will also make your PH go up a little bit. I think it's around .2 - .3 if dosed slowly. I have mine set up with a 1 Gallon jug so I don't touch it for 1.5 days and my water stays the same level. It also helps keep your calcium levels stable.

In a 40 gallon tank, it takes 4.9 Gallons of saturated (2 tsp kalk per gallon) to raise the tank's calcium 100ppm and the PH goes up .6-.7 immediately if added all at once. (add white vinegar if you don't want the ph increase)
Thats my understanding of it.


So you might think of dripping at night...

 

[_Adrian_]

meh...
i have a mix of live sand and crushed coral ( 60/40 mix )

Tonites test revealed:

NH4 - 0, NO2 - 0.05, NO3 - 4, Ph - 8.4 at lights out, Ca - ~430ppm
Temp has been pretty stable at 77F ( about 2 degree swing at most)

Need a skimmer though....