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Crawdawg
07/07/2011, 10:34 PM
Most literature says between 78-82. I split the diff and keep my tanks at 80, is this too hot? Everything seems fine, but lowering the temp isn't a problem either if need be. It just seems I see a lot of ppl on these forums keeping things closer to 78.

Thanks

rtb388
07/07/2011, 10:35 PM
79 for me.. mixed reef

funkejj
07/07/2011, 10:51 PM
Mine is 78 at night and up to 82 during the day. It swings depending on if the lights are on and what not. No big thing. There are temp swings in the ocean too with currents.

disc1
07/07/2011, 10:55 PM
Even the 78F to 82F range is already a pretty narrow range in the grand scheme of things. We're trying to replicate a natural environment. Worrying about temperature down to the degree isn't realistic, natural, or necessary. I doubt seriously that anything in the tank can really tell the difference between 79F and 80F.

boombox3
07/07/2011, 10:57 PM
Mine is at 81-82.

Crawdawg
07/07/2011, 11:02 PM
Thanks for the responses, sounds like ill leave it at 80. It seems real easy to overthink things when just getting started. It's information overload, combined with the overwhelming desire to get it all "perfect". All seems well, guess I should stop fretting, and enjoy my tank...lol.

disc1
07/07/2011, 11:24 PM
It's information overload, combined with the overwhelming desire to get it all "perfect".

I'll go ahead and address pH too then because that one gets more people than temperature. I think one of the top mistakes that newby's make with their water chemistry is dumping in a bunch of buffer chasing 2 tenths of a pH point. That 7.8 - 8.4 represents a really narrow range of H+ concentration. There's no need to start trying to split hairs on pH, you just end up jacking up your water chemistry.

If alk is stable and high, then pH will be what it needs to be.

rtb388
07/07/2011, 11:30 PM
+1 on the PH ... good piece of info there!

Crawdawg
07/07/2011, 11:41 PM
I'll go ahead and address pH too then because that one gets more people than temperature. I think one of the top mistakes that newby's make with their water chemistry is dumping in a bunch of buffer chasing 2 tenths of a pH point. That 7.8 - 8.4 represents a really narrow range of H+ concentration. There's no need to start trying to split hairs on pH, you just end up jacking up your water chemistry.

If alk is stable and high, then pH will be what it needs to be.

Haha, that saves a thread. :spin2:

dzhuo
07/07/2011, 11:44 PM
Thanks for the responses, sounds like ill leave it at 80.

Temp is truly one of the parameter that you don't need to worry about as long as it stays between 78 to 85. Even huge (several degrees within minutes) fluctuations within this range is not harmful or stressful to corals assuming the corals are used to the environment. In fact, numerous researches have found that temp fluctuations encourage faster coral grow and is essential for the overall health of most corals. Most people who chase a stable temp are simply wasting effort and money to hurt the coral.

disc1 is also right on about pH. Most external pH fluctuations aren't harmful as lots of enzymes require a stable pH in order to work properly. Most marin animals (corals included) thus have very good internal pH regulation which are independent of the external fluctuations. As long as pH stays above 7.8, there is really nothing to worry about.

rysher
07/07/2011, 11:53 PM
mines 81-82
my ph stays at 7.8 never changed!

peppie
07/08/2011, 12:00 AM
79-81

Kappapibeta
07/08/2011, 02:08 AM
temp depends on what you want to keep in your tank. most livestock that are being sold thrive around 80ish. there are corals/inverts/fish that came from temps below 74 that are also being sold, so just research. Liveaquaria.com is a great place to see which temp/pH livestock will thrive in.

InsaneClownFish
07/08/2011, 02:13 AM
Temp is truly one of the parameter that you don't need to worry about as long as it stays between 78 to 85. Even huge (several degrees within minutes) fluctuations within this range is not harmful or stressful to corals assuming the corals are used to the environment. In fact, numerous researches have found that temp fluctuations encourage faster coral grow and is essential for the overall health of most corals. Most people who chase a stable temp are simply wasting effort and money to hurt the coral.

I disagree here. IMHO 78-85 is a broad range. Several degree changes in minutes within a closed system can severely stress some of your more sensitive animals.

While I do agree most everything will probably be alright, I don't want new reefers to get the impression that your temp swinging that much will not cause problems- if not now, I can guarantee you eventually- in a closed system. While we try to mirror what's in nature, it is a synthetic environment. Keep in mind that there are areas of the world that don't have dramatic temp swings, and the ones that do are taking place in a volume of water, and chemical soup, that we cannot duplicate.

There's no "best" temperature for your reef. Rather it's the best temperature for you. If you can keep your reef at 78 and have it stay within a few degrees higher- then great. But if you're 82-83 most of the time, then keeping it at 80 is most likely better as there is less of a swing.

jr_casteel1999
07/08/2011, 04:14 AM
i keep mine a little on the cool side at 77 and thats 77 day and night. alot of these fish and corals come out of cooler water.

jong11
07/08/2011, 04:58 AM
78 - 82 during the summer. 78 during the winter. A lot of CUC prefer cooler temps and will live longer in them.

pfan151
07/08/2011, 06:13 AM
Mine stays at around 75 day and night.

snorvich
07/08/2011, 06:57 AM
77 F. Dissolved oxygen in the water is higher with cooler temperature. Fish metabolism is also higher at higher temperature. I don't obsess over this, it is simply my choice. My lights add no heat so it is pretty easy to maintain.

Genin
07/08/2011, 07:13 AM
77F day 75F night. Works fine, fish do great, corals do great.

jeff@zina.com
07/08/2011, 08:26 AM
It just seems I see a lot of ppl on these forums keeping things closer to 78.
I have tanks at 72F and 86F. It really depends on what you're keeping. A couple degree variance is nothing to the occupants, for the most part.

Jeff

Raggamuffin
07/08/2011, 08:32 AM
anywhere between 76 and 82 I am comfortable with, as with everything in this hobby stable is the thing to work on not any specific. The great thing about temp is 2-3 degrees F swing during the day is considered stable as long as it is somewhere in that range I'm happy.

mordibv
07/08/2011, 08:39 AM
77 F. Dissolved oxygen in the water is higher with cooler temperature. Fish metabolism is also higher at higher temperature. I don't obsess over this, it is simply my choice. My lights add no heat so it is pretty easy to maintain.

+1 _
I try keep mine around 77.5 . I am new to this NE weather so it thorws me for a loop . I was asked recently why I wanted to keep my temp that low . I responded with " I was taught that way" .
RA V1 page 225 subject temp . Old school but it works for me.

" The temperature in reef aquariums should be between 21-27 *C or 78-80 degrees for the best results and as stable as possible .
In our experience , a temperature of 23-24 * C 74-76 degrees *F is ideal . If the temperature varies plus or minus one or two degrees Fahrenheit during the course of the day .,this is not a problem .
The most common problem is high temperature above 27* C 80* F .Wide fluctuations are also harmful ."yada yada .

Just curious ....
Is there any new info out there on this ?

dzhuo
07/08/2011, 09:22 AM
77 F. Dissolved oxygen in the water is higher with cooler temperature. Fish metabolism is also higher at higher temperature. I don't obsess over this, it is simply my choice. My lights add no heat so it is pretty easy to maintain.

This is certainly true but what people failed to tell you is exactly how much difference there is and most people do not verify before jumping to the conclusion that this is a problem. If you look at the 2 end points of 77 and 82, there is only about 6% difference in dissolved oxygen. And what does this translate to? Both end points still hold more than 200% dissolved oxygen over the safe saturated level.

I hope you agree this isn't a problem at all.

dzhuo
07/08/2011, 09:25 AM
78 - 82 during the summer. 78 during the winter. A lot of CUC prefer cooler temps and will live longer in them.

I don't question the fact that you will be encounter animals which might prefer slightly lower temp but +95% of your corals and fish average a annual 82F (with lots of fluctuations hourly) temperature and yet you would subject your tank to a lower temperature to benefit this 5% of animals? Not to mention if you are referring to sub-tropical animals, they shouldn't be in your tank to begin with. Explain to me how this make any sense?

dzhuo
07/08/2011, 09:35 AM
I disagree here. IMHO 78-85 is a broad range. Several degree changes in minutes within a closed system can severely stress some of your more sensitive animals.

This has been debated over and over both in the hobbyists and scientific level. I am not even sure 85F is the thermal stress limit as a typical reef during low tide could easily excess this threshold. Here is a hobbyist who took a sample reading in Marshell Island:

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r158/cchavis/testresults-1.jpg

Obviously, this is just a hobbyist taking a single sample so it's not conclusive or anything. On a more scientific level, there is a marine biologist who specialize in thermal stress:


I work on thermal stress in reef animals, no naturally threads on this subject aggravate me because there's so much misinformation in the hobby regarding temperature and it's constantly being repeated as if it were fact.

To answer the original question, I let my tank get up to 86 regularly. On rare occasions it might climb to 88. Last year during a power outage it went to 92 for a few hours without issue.

Now to address the misinformation about what is harmful and what isn't when it comes to temps-

What kinds of temps are reefs seeing in the wild? The worldwide, yearly average is about 82. The average wintertime low is 77 and the average summertime high is 86. The often repeated "ideal" temperature of 78 replicates the low end of wintertime temperatures. Also, it has been documented that the minute-to-minute fluctuations in temperature are regularly as much as half of the yearly range with the magnitude of fluctuation increasing with depth down to 90-120 ft. There is absolutely no evidence that these fluctuations are stressful to reef animals, nor would you expect them to be since they have experienced these fluctuations for their entire evolutionary histories. In fact, there's limited evidence suggesting that these types of fluctuations may be important for modulating the stress threshold.

So if 78 isn't ideal then what is? For the hard corals we have optima for, it's about 82-84. That's also roughly the average for the area of the Indo-Pacific that represents the center of coral reef biodiversity. That's probably pretty close to the ideal average temperature.

How high is it safe to go? It depends. The answer varies from tank to tank. The stress threshold is not set genetically. It changes depending on the ambient temperature regime. The simple answer is that you're safe to go 2 degrees above the normal maximum temp. That's why it really bugs me to see statements like "above X degrees is just asking for trouble." It all depends on what the temperature normally is.

Another statement that bugs me is "a colder temp offers a wider margin of error in case of an emergency." This assumes that 1) the stress threshold is a set number, which as I already pointed out isn't true, and 2) that the animals in a cooler tank will respire less if there's an emergency. There's not much data on the second assumption, but from the little we have that assumption doesn't seem to be true. At rest, under normal conditions, if you have one specimen (A) at 78 deg F and another (B) of the same species and the same size at 80 deg F, then B will have a higher respiration rate than A. However, as the temperature increases, the respiration rate of A quickly out-paces that of B and for any further non-lethal temperature, B will always be consuming less oxygen than A. In other words, at 80 degrees, A will use more O2 than B does at the same temp. The same is true for 82, 84, etc.

The difference in O2 saturation over the range of temps we keep in reefs is so small that it's essentially negligible. Even at 90, the saturation point is still double the safe lower limit.


There are countless other examples and research papers recently published which suggest nothing but huge temperature swing within the thermal max safe zone is not stress to corals or fish at all. Here is another thread this topic is recently discussed:

Acceptable Daily Temperature fluctuations (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1977164)

Having said that, I want to clarify that the swing is only OK if:

1. You don't excess the thermal stress limit of the corals. 85F certainly isn't.
2. The corals or fish you kept are not already accumulated to constant temperature.

dzhuo
07/08/2011, 09:52 AM
Just curious ....
Is there any new info out there on this ?

Yes. The quote you cited is most definitely not correct.

mtnbiker44
07/08/2011, 07:15 PM
I have a FOWLR. mine is at 80 winter & 83 summer

gtphale
07/08/2011, 07:31 PM
mine sits between 79 - 82, my shroooms don't seem to like the temps any higher.

tecnomage
07/08/2011, 08:05 PM
78.5-80.5 in my tank. Some people research where each coral came from and try to match the range to the coral. I like to just pick a low value in the range in case a heater goes wild or the temperature spikes in Seattle and we get 90 degree weather.

d0ughb0y
07/08/2011, 08:27 PM
I've always kept my tank between 78-81, but I remember a reef tank display at waikiki aquarium showing they keep temp at 72.

come to think of it, liveaquaria lists all their fish and coral temp as 72-78.

I keep mine at 78-81 for practical reasons, as that is about the room temperature.

NaCL Aquarist
07/08/2011, 10:12 PM
This is a most interesting thread to a newbie. Even though we live in a house with good "level" A.C., our 90 gallon tank refuses to ever go below 79.9. Room temps is usually 73 to 75. The high tank temps are constant without any lights on, either in the fuge, or in the main tank. I keep limiting the T-5 lighting unit to only a couple hours on in the morning, & up to three hours at night.

The light appears to be a main cause of the "heat problem", even though I took a jig saw and cut two major rectangular holes in the top of the canopy to release heat.

Have just added four mushroom corals (tank has been a FOWLR), but am concerned about high temps and fluctuations. Tank will go to 82 degrees with lights running any longer. The fish have been happy with the mostly-dark tank. We are not though. A Darth Vader tank is not what we wanted. Can I keep the lights on for six to 8 hours, if the temp SWINGS don't go above 82? Or...the Shrooms will die anyway, from lack of light?

Thanks, for any comments........