Talking Temperature

[TheMan1]

I'm just starting up a nano (i had a 65 gallon reef aquarium in the past), and i got to thinking about temperature. I've heard many say that any temperature above 84 is dangerous, but i find that hard to believe. Naturally occuring reefs have temperatures that exceed that greatly (sometimes get into the low 90's). Also, Shimek suggests that temperatures in the mid 80's to the lower 90's are acceptable. He says he keeps his reef at a baseline of 85. Is the temperature itself what is important in a reef tank? Or is keeping the temperature consistent the important thing (i.e. 85 degrees always, night and day). If you could give me input and your aquarium temp., i would greatly appreciate it. Also, if you can include your location that would be great (see how temps vary from region to region).

[eidillitih]

New Orleans 81 consistently without chiller. I run it 78 with chiller

[mystikdragon7]

Seattle area here, keep it at 79 with a 100w heater, 81 in the summertime.

[BigBert96]

Im no marine biologist by any means, but i have taken some ocean classes in college. Let me chime in and give my 2 cents. During night and day, there are large temp. swings, especially right off shore in the water. Alot of this is caused by upwelling, and other factors such as wind. During the day, the land heats up and sucks cool air off of the waters surface. During the night, the opposite happens as the land cools down. On a reef, the temp can be swayed by up to 10 degrees in some instances. So I dont think its too important to stay at 78 or 79 degrees all the time. A little variance will probably benefit the fish as this is what happens in nature.

[bkwudzjeep]

I'd say my average is around 83 in FL.

[tkeracer619]

80deg lights on or lights off. I have enough fans to keep it all cool. My tank when i first installed the halides went to 85 2 days in a row. The tank didn't look nearly as healthy and I installed an evep cooling system and 2 more fans on the surface. This keeps air not warmed by the halides running over the tops of the water.

I took the fans out of an old powersupply that didnt work. And when I turned them on they lit up blue. Wooooh can we say free moonlighting.

I know the water can get warm in the tropics but 90+ degrees. Maybe but not in my reef. Im pretty sure a temp swing like that would hurt stuff more than help it.

[cato]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6711336#post6711336 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TheMan1
I'm just starting up a nano (i had a 65 gallon reef aquarium in the past), and i got to thinking about temperature. I've heard many say that any temperature above 84 is dangerous, but i find that hard to believe. Naturally occuring reefs have temperatures that exceed that greatly (sometimes get into the low 90's). Also, Shimek suggests that temperatures in the mid 80's to the lower 90's are acceptable. He says he keeps his reef at a baseline of 85. Is the temperature itself what is important in a reef tank? Or is keeping the temperature consistent the important thing (i.e. 85 degrees always, night and day). If you could give me input and your aquarium temp., i would greatly appreciate it. Also, if you can include your location that would be great (see how temps vary from region to region).

I posted a temp poll that may help you out too.

Mine averages 78-79. I set my tank up in Sept. Since I live in New England this is my winter time temp. Will becurious to see what my summer time temps are (with A/C on of course).

[IslandCrow]

I wonder if the stricter range of temperatures has more to do with making all of your tank inhabitants happy. I'm guessing most of us don't bother trying to perfectly replicate a reef from one particular area. I notice that my mushrooms start to wilt a little bit if my temperature gets above about 80, but everything else looks just fine. Still, I try to keep it over 75 and under 80. Also, I'm not marine biologist either, but one thing I worry more about is temperature swings. In every tropical area I've lived, the water temperatures stay fairly constant day and night. Even throughout the year, they change much slower than the land. . .just simple physics there.

[DaveAngie79]

77-79 all day long

[balberth]

I agree that one of the keys is that you're trying to keep a lot of different things from a lot of different places. Some live near the surface where there can be wide temperature swings, and others live much deeper, where the temperatures are more stable and don't get as high.

I've gone snorkeling on the reefs in French Polynesia recently and found currents of water that must have been 90F or more mixing with other water that was in the low 80's, just from shallow areas and lots of sun vs the deeper cooler waters. The animals ( including a whole bunch of sps corals and tridnacid clams ) were doing just fine, thank you, even where they were obviously getting hit with pretty rapid fluctuations in temperature.

There's also some points about duration of the temperature extremes. being able to survive daily or even seasonal highs do not necessarily mean that an organism can survive near hitting those highs without cooling down periodically. As an example from another hobby - I keep highland tropical plants which can take temperature peaks in the 100's of degrees. But it has to cool off below about 70F at night, or they'll die. Even if it stays 80F day and night, they eventually die.

Perhaps it's not so simple as an organism being able to do okay at just one specific temperature - the timing can be really important.

Having said all this, I keep my tank 79-81F, and the stuff I grow seems happy.

--Albert

[corals b 4 bills]

80-83 during the day and 78 during the night.