Heat problem. Not sure what is the cause.

[tangyreefer05]

Hello, I have a 90g setup with a prefecto hood with two 48" flour. strip lights. One 420 actinic, one URI 10k bulb.

Skimmer - Coralife SS 125g
Heater - None
PH - Maxi-jet 1200x2 w/wave makers

I posted this here because the only thing I can figure is that salt water generally stays warmer than fresh, which I did not know. My tank is at 80 degrees F with out the lights on and about 82-83 with the lights on. I am worried that this is to warm and I am just confused on why it is so warm in there. If this was fresh water it would be under 70 degrees. Possibly it is the skimmer?

Thanks for any help.

Tim

[Blown 346]

Fresh water and saltwater dont have temp differences. You could have the same setup but in FW and it will be that warm as well.

The skimmer wont generate heat but pumps will, but not 3 or 4 degrees.

To reduce temp you can remove the hood and leave it open. This will cause evaporation which will lower the temp.
How warm is it in the house? is the tank near a window with sunlight hitting it?

[AZDesertRat]

First off, if you have the glass top on it remove at least half of it for better air circulation and oxygen transfer. If that doesn't work get a 6" clip on fan at Wal Mart and have it blow across the surface, it will lower the temp 5 degrees easily if not more.

[tangyreefer05]

When it was setup with african cichlids I had the same setup, just no skimmer. The hood is plastic and I removed the rear flaps. I still dont know what is causing the heat. I never had a problem in freshwater. When I buy a new light then maybe I can leave the top more open

[thor32766]

try some computer fans to help circulate. and yeah even if it doesnt help the temp, you dont want close fitting lights in a salwater.

[tangyreefer05]

I could remove the flip up lids, I think I can probaly lower it to 78 If I can add some type of fan in my setup. It wont be as bad I hope when I buy a 8x54w T5 setup, I would think this would put out more heat however I wont have anything covering the water (maybe a fan installed for extra air circulation). My 3 snails appear to be doing okay, Do you think 81 degrees is to warm for one damsel?

[tangyreefer05]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7440692#post7440692 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Blown 346
Fresh water and saltwater dont have temp differences. You could have the same setup but in FW and it will be that warm as well.

The skimmer wont generate heat but pumps will, but not 3 or 4 degrees.

To reduce temp you can remove the hood and leave it open. This will cause evaporation which will lower the temp.
How warm is it in the house? is the tank near a window with sunlight hitting it? There are no windows in my room, in the basement. It is usually around 72 degrees.

[AZDesertRat]

Most of us keep our reefs at 80 degrees.

[Danfish]

I don't know if this is a valid worry, but you might want to check the temp of the tank some night late at night, long after the lights have been out for a while.

I don't know how long it would take, but with no heater the temp could fall to low at night (or have too much of a rapid change).

I took out my heater for a few hours to warm up some water and in the 4 hours it was out of the tank (day time, lights on) the temp droped from 80* to 76*

[MCary]

Seems like all your heat would come from electrical equipment. You already know about the lights. How much heat do your power heads generate? How much of the heat is stored from the lights being on? You said the tank is 80 with the lights off, but does it just get down to 80 before they come back on?

[SethSPST]

Mine fluctuates from 81 during the day to 76 at night. Is that too much?

[Blown 346]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7444296#post7444296 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SethSPST
Mine fluctuates from 81 during the day to 76 at night. Is that too much?
Yes that temp swing is killer on the fish, and mostly corals. You dont want a temp swing of more than 2 degrees within a 6 or 8 hours.

[tangyreefer05]

I removed my top and i'm just using the strip lights. It went from 81.7 to 81.4 and so far hasnt dropped any more. I have checked it when the lights were out for over 10 hours and it was 79-80. It seems that something besides the lights is the main cause. I have turned off the powerheads for over 24 hrs and it doesnt have any effect. It is either my eheim classic which I never had that problem with freshwater. I am going to walmart right now to buy a clip on fan and maybe with that and the top being off it will stay around 80. If for some reason it drops more than 3-4 degrees with the lights off, I will add a heater. It is pretty weird but I think it is my skimmer, Ide rather not shut it off because it's micro bubbles are finially going away.

[Marinemom]

I will be following your thread to see if it is the skimmer like you think it might be. I just added the same skimmer to my reef and my tank hit 90 degrees today and 88 degrees yesterday. I didn't seem to have this problem either until I changed my skimmer. i have opened the glass tops on my tank but so far I do not see much of a difference. I unplugged the heater tonight and I'm going to see if that helps. I will be watching the tank very closely to see what comes of this.

Marinemom

[Marinemom]

P.s. I'm also getting lots of micro bubbles. I just set the skimmer up 2 nights ago. How long has your skimmer been running and how long has it taken for the micro bubbles to go away?

Marinemom

[Danfish]

I have an off brand skimmer but it never stoped making micro bubbles.
I had to wrap my main pump with some of that blue filter material to try and dampen the bubbles. Worked pretty well.
Granted no pods or anything is going to be able to get out of my sump now, plan on setting up a seprate refugium later for that tho.

[tangyreefer05]

Marinemom, I still have a pretty large amount of micro bubbles. It was running for a week stright but I think I am only going to run it at night. I removed my complete top and now just have my lights above water. However this only dropped my temp. from 81.7 to 79.6-80.4. Last night I unplugged the skimmer and woke up today and the temp is 76.2-76.5 with the lights on. I am going to see how cold it gets with the lights off but I dont think it will change much, I am just running two 48" HO flo bulbs. Also at night with the skimmer on if it gets above 78 I am going to have to add my heater so it can keep my temp consistant with the skimmer off in the daytime. By the way, if you dont have a digi therm. get one, they are great. $6.99

[wwest]

i use to have a fresh water tank. i had to huge oscars in the tank. they pasted on so i decided to go salt water. well when i had the oscars i didnt run a heater in the summer time and the tank stayed around 75-76 degrees. now i am running a saltwater tank and i still dont use a heater in the summer and the tank temp is around 80-82 degrees. popurlar to some belief in opinion saltwater rises in temp alot faster. the setup is excactly the same powerheads and filters are in the same place. the only thing i added was a skimmer in which case i added it about a year before my oscars died. now to fix this problem i added a 6 inch pc fan and turned my heater on so the temp would stay at 80. but my water is evapurating about a gallon every two days so im back to square one but i agree with ya in temp tim. i dont really think i helped ya much but thats my story lol :-)

[wwest]

also my tank is a covered tank with the fan hit the return flow of the filter. i have also heard you dont want to fluxuate your temp with just a damsels i am sure you are ok but if you have added anything delicate be carefull with the temp flux. hope i helped at least alittle lol

[TOYMAN357]

I always change my light schedule in summer time. I have my lights come on around midnight and run throught the night. It keeps tank cooler adding a few degrees at night when house is cooled off. You could always add a air conditioner to the room your tank is in. Also dont forget in your fresh water tank you did not have a pile of live rock to hold the heat in. The rock and sand bed take a while to cool off after getting hot.

[syilk1]

WOW wish I would of read this 4 days ago. I live in Chicago and finally went to turn on AC in house becasue was warm this weekend and was not working. Is a brand new house and guy said earliest he could get to me was 5/30 at 7am. SO house is at 90 and tank with lights off was up to 86. I was panicking becasue had to leave for weekend and thought everything would fry. Packed ICE in zip lock bags and dropped in tank. Got to 84 and had to go get small 7 dollar clip on fan at walgreens. Hooked onto tank and went to bed and prayed it would drop tank. Went down next day and was at 77 degrees. House is at 90. So fan works very well as AZ stated. Just praying temp swing didnt damage all my coral. Fish are doing fine.

[tangyreefer05]

Syilk1, that is good news and good idea I think with the ice packs. Yeah It does take awhile to cool down once it heats up i've noticed. My tank is running cooler without my hood (it took 24-48 hrs to fully cool down..), it doesnt reach above 80 even when the room is very warm. At night it doesn't drop below 77-78, So it's going well.