Water temp for my reef

[easygoer2]

My temp in the tank was at 84.5 because of the new 400 watt MH's I got for Christmas. Now I bought a chiller to keep the temp down. What do you think It should be set at? The factory setting was 77 degrees.
easygoer2

 

[King Jason]

I like 78-80

 

[Anonymous]

I Prefer 82, you'll get a variety of answers, most new books will say somewhere at least above 80

 

[dsc]

Mine jumped up to 82 from 78 about 3 weeks ago and both of my tank raised clowns dropped thier slime coats and died. Needless to say I bought a new titanium heater (the other was visa-therm glass) along with a pair of maroons and the temp stays around 78 - 80 and no probs yet.

 

[Steven]

Anything between 77 and 80 should be fine. I keep my tank at 79. Just make sure to adjust the temp slowly. No more than 1 degree per day.

 

[Anonymous]

1 degree per day?

reefs see swings WAY more than 1 degree

Heck, my little 10g went from 80-86 every day for a year, then I upgraded it to a 20g long

You guys need to do some reading, almost all books now accept the fact that natrual temps are not in the 70's

 

[Steven]

OK, so I prefer to err on the side of caution with temperature changes. As for the books (and magazines and web sites), there's a whole range of temperatures offered as optimum. The key is stability once you get there. Just ask my Yellow Tang. He's been doing great at 79 degrees for the past 5 years.

 

[dsc]

Remember , what works for some may not work for others. My temp swing is around 3-4 degrees from night to day. After my clowns died I wouldnt dare try 86 but thats just me

 

[Anonymous]

People used to advocate temps in the low 70's, only in the past few years was it determined that was only prolonging coral death.

Unless of course, you had corals from a zone with temps that low

 

[ZigZagZombie]

Just thought i would chime in....I keep my tank at 78 degrees during the day, and it falls to 75 when the lights are off. Been like this for over a year with no problems to fish or corals....Corals and fish do adjust..

 

[Anonymous]

If my tank drops down to 75, I enter panic mode, I've had bad things happin when the temp gets much lower than that.


Some good reading here..

My favorite quote..

>Secondly, if you lower the temperature about 6 degrees below optimum - say 78 from 84, the animals' metabolic functions drop by about 45%. Called the Q10 law, and is a common rule in invertebrate physiology.


http://www.reefs.org/library/article/reef_temperature.html


http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/d_warren_011898.html

 

[dsc]

I live on the east coast and we go to the beach all the time and I really dont think the water is above 80. I may be wrong so I will bring a thermometer next trip. sea water at va. beach seems much colder than 80

 

[Anonymous]

Your right DSC, and the water at the beach at longbeach washington is 45 degrees, whats your point exactly?

The corals we keep dont come from virginia beach, they come from solomons & fiji mostly..

 

[Leopardshark]

DSC, if you go the the "beach" in russia, you will find the water is a little above freezing temp.
So probably we should set our tanks to -32F
Personally I like 80, but anything between 78-84F sounds great for me

 

[Mogo]

One thing I have noticed many times while snorkelling on shallow reefs. The water temp changes all the time. One minute your in a "warm spot", the next minute it's cooler caused by local heating then mixing by current and surge. I gotta believe that in shallow natural reefs there is a natural temp swing- not daily- but by the minute. Corals and fish always looked pretty healthy to me, so I don't worry about my aquariums daily temp swing of 2 or 3 degrees (77 to 80).
IME I'm pretty sure that this phenomena is not caused by sunstroke and dehydration etc.

 

[LFS42]

I prefer my shrimp fried :lol:

I used to keep it at 82/84 deg.
Then my heater broke. So in the 2 weeks it took to save up enough to get a new heater, I noticed everything seemed to be doing a little bit better.
My temp drops to 75 at night, goes up to about 78/79 as the lights go out.
I never replaced the heater.
Plus, it's 1 less thing to worry about.

I read average reef temps run from 70-85 deg. with some peaking in the low 90's. And fluctuations of 5 degrees are common.
Salinity swings are common also.
It all depends on where you are.
You will never find a definate answer at what temp you need, but rather a good place to start.

 

[King Jason]

I had my heater unplugged in my 60g too. Never noticed a problem. Temp would go down into mid 70's at night and back to 78-80 during the day. Was like that for 3 years.

 

[dsc]

never been to fiji or solomons. beem to hawaii, mexico and the florida keys and the temp still colder than 86

 

[GSchiemer]

One thing I have noticed many times while snorkelling on shallow reefs. The water temp changes all the time. One minute your in a "warm spot", the next minute it's cooler caused by local heating then mixing by current and surge. I gotta believe that in shallow natural reefs there is a natural temp swing- not daily- but by the minute. Corals and fish always looked pretty healthy to me, so I don't worry about my aquariums daily temp swing of 2 or 3 degrees (77 to 80).
IME I'm pretty sure that this phenomena is not caused by sunstroke and dehydration etc.

Actually, there is very LITTLE to NO temperature change on most coral reefs from day to night. There are exceptions, such as storms, and there are seasonal temperature changes. I've done many day and night dives to the same reef and measured the water temperature. It's always been the same, despite dramatic changes in air and surface temperatures. Surface water temperatures are a completely different story and can change dramatically from one area to another, but we're talking about depths of one to three feet here.

Greg Schiemer

 

[reefann]

I like 78-84. My theory is why let large temp changes happen when it can be avoided. Less stress for everything.
JJ
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