Reef Temp
 

What is the best temp for a tank with corals and inverts, no fish?

:biggrin:

I keep mine at 78, as I don't want to cook my Mexican Turbo snails.

Keep mine about 76

Why?

I find cooler temps slows growth a bit, keeps O2 higher and slows waste breakdown. I think I also read somewhere that reef temps are around that.

I used to run a 150g at 82, and it would climb to 90 some days in the summer. Corals browned out a lot, but grew like dandelions. I had to trim monthly and give away coolers of frags.
This tank I decided to run cooler, and it's the nicest I've had in 12 years. That's not all temp related, but I believe that helps.

Thanks, Brad. :)

I didn't know that about o2. That is something I'll file away in my brain in case I don't plumb my NC12 into the sumped system.

I've seen so many different thoughts on reef temps that it's hard to decide
Lower temps, as Brad stated, allow for more oxygenated water
Most infections will spread / progress slower @ lower temps due to metabolism
Metabolic rates of corals are slower @ lower temps, and sometimes that's not ideal

Some will set their target temps based on their home room temp, and even so much as the time of year
Some of this habit is an attempt to use less electricity

Here's some opinions and reading for you;
Keep in mind that I think some who responded to the canreef poll were a bit off with their conception of Celcius to Fahrenheit conversions as 26c is 78.8ish and 27c is 80.6ish

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...ight=reef+temp

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1869167

http://www.ronshimek.com/salinity_temperature.html

76F here. My corals feel sick when the temp reach 78F or so, especially my gorgonians and my LT plate coral.

76 for me as well, if you can keep it that cool without cooling then why spend more energy heating it.

Thanks for the replies, I thought at those temps it might be to cool as my tank is between 76-77 normally. When the pc's are running different story. I cannot wait for monday...:lol: my new LED's will be here and then the temp will be level and hopefully nicer light too....:mrgreen:

I run my controller at 83.5F and mix NSW at 1.026-1.027, bit different than most it looks.

Wow, really ???
That's a whole lotta up there ....

I'm running 80f and think it's my limit

My SG is 1.025 for now, both DT and QT

I follow Ron's logic in the link above with regards to sea life metabolism being a large part of their immune system and metabolism being directly linked to temperature. I just try to match the average reef, IMO lower salinity and temps have been a LFS cost saving technique more than any science.

Do you have any temperate species in your tank (margarita snails, etc.)? If so, how are they holding up?

Nothing special species wise and everything seems happy and active. My post should read 82.5 instead of 83.5, typo, with a .2 swing either way on the Apex.

I hate border collies, always jumping on my head at 4am...anyway, since I was up, I read a few articles on temp and based on these, similar to the link above, I'm going to raise my temp to 79 or 80 to see what differences I can notice. I guess I need to buy a heater :)

For sure... extra investment that you will have to get when up switch over to LED.

When I had my 150X2 MH and 54X4 T5 over the 75gal before, heater never turns on, but chiller does even in the winter time.

However when I switch over to LED, heater actually turns on first time in 2 years.

For me, I have the heater kicks in at 75 and turns off at 76. and with 1 degree drop at night.

From all my 4am reading, that's too cold for corals. That's where my tank has always been, but I'm going to raise it and see what the corals do..

I set the summer time temp lower because tank is now on a different floor, and with all LED. I am not too sure how will the temp rise up during the summer. So I set it lower, that way, if it shouldn't rise up to an alarming level. Even when it does, I should be home already and deal with it.

I've been running my tanks @ 80 due to Ron S info
I am starting to trust in the thoughts of the higher temps .....
Not just based on fishes but the metabolism of corals

My temps run from 78-79 usually unless it gets hot outside. The chiller only kicks in after I feed the tank as I turn off the pump and the heater is in the sump or if its blazing hot outside and the tank hits 82 as its set to allow a 3 degree swing.

78.6 steady apparentyl, atleast thats what it always says on my controller. night time it drops to about 77.2 giver take

To avoid my ceiling temp from going too high I allow the tank to cool down by morning to 78. It still hits 82 before the halides turn off. It takes until early morning when I get up for it to cool back down to 78. A big swing compared to most but I refuse to run a chiller anymore.

Brad's sick of the LED electrical savings already! Buying a heater now? :lol:

Do you recall what your system's total draw was over 24 hrs before with halides? I'd be curious what it will be with a few hundred watts of heating and the LEDs.

Interesting question. You don't see the LED manufacturers talking about this much do you?

I have increased mine from 78 to 80 as well. Just to see how the corals react. I am really curious to see how it makes a difference as the temperature in the ocean decreases dramatically with depth (I remember being frozen after a couple deep scuba dives and swimming on the surface to warm up).

Im hoping the ones closer to the surface were growing faster not only because of the the increase in light but also warmer temps.

The test will start today lol

Coral temps
 

With the warmer weather my tank maxes out @ 80.5F (low of 79.5F before heater kicks in)

Anyone else see changes in tank growth?

And with that said, around June 10th I dropped my tanks to 79F :razz:
One reason is it will, over the year, be cheaper when I math out the heaters and chiller operation. This is due to my house's poor insulation
Another is the oxygen level
Yet another is my ability to spot things that are going wrong before they get out of hand

I don't mind if the corals grow a little slower, plus, maybe some of the other critters may live a little longer and need less food

:noidea: just a thought

Yes. At the beginning of this thread, I decided to try raising my temp to 79. Since then I've noticed increased growth on my SPS.

I prefer 78. Seems everything is happy at that temperature.

Mine hit 89 this week. No air conditioner... Until today... And the tank cooked. Have a couple corals dying. An acan and some SPS.... Including my amazing purple birdsnest. Sad week. Tank moves down stairs by next summer.

wow, most of my corals would die at that temperature, including my clams. My temps reached 81 one day and I lost a full colony of acropora that day to RTN, the clam looked sick, the gorgonians all closed for a week after that. wierd that mine don't stand too much heat.

Me, heater set to 78, usually sits around 79-81.

Temperature swings are bad but higher temps shouldn't really kill anything that isn't a deep water or temperate species.
Most reefs/dives I've been on the temps are 84 to 86F and things are living and thriving.

Like I said before, I follow Ron's logic with respect to matching the natural reef parameters. It is what evolution has prepared the animals for I hope.

Temp swings suck, but they happen, and most healthy corals should handle it. I went a long time one summer bouncing from 80 to 90 daily, and only lost one species of acro (8 frags of it). Everything else was fine, although perhaps a bit more brown..

24.5C 25.5C (78) here
http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm
Heater is my controller and water tubing coil cooled with cold tap water is my chiller.
I run a 1/4 inch OD tube from my RO/DI inlet to the sump, and back to the P-trap, with straight valve slightly open to the fast drip.
There is a 15 feet tube coil in the sump acts as a heat exchanger/cooler.
Back to the RO/DI waste line and in to the drain. water cost for a few short Summer month in Vancouver where it rains 9 month out of 12 is nothing compare to the cost of the controller and chiller and electricity to run the chiller.


Cut water supply line to RO/DI and insert the 1/4" OD line in with straight line valve for flow control.
http://i381.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0442-1.jpg
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Run the tube line to you sump and make a coil that will act as a heat exchanger
http://i381.photobucket.com/albums/o...ofIMG_0439.jpg
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Run the tube line back to the RO/DI waiste line and or back to the P trap
http://i381.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0441-1.jpg
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You summer chiller is on line !
If water will get below set your heater will kick in.

I followed that logic last year and still waiting for some SPS to recover this year, the sps colonies browned out and one was full of algae that i had to cut out with skeleton chunks. So this year i am keeping it at 78 (25.5C) tops.

This small heat exchanger coil works amazingly well. My tank is 65 gal + ~10 of water in the sump. For larger tanks i would just increase the size of the heat exchanger coil.

Just an update on raising my temp to 79. Since then I've noticed increased growth on almost every piece i have. No change in color at all, but some pieces that appeared dormant for a year suddenly have grown to triple what they were.
So I'm changing my original answer to be 79F as the optimal temp :)

Have you noticed any changes in any of your fish or inverts?

Nope, the only difference is an increase in coral growth. I might suggest that my skimmer fills up quicker, but that could be from other reasons.

Hmm, I wonder if keeping my temp at 79 is why my znp grow like weeds. I have lots of frags from others that say they are slow growers but sprout new heads quickly in my tank. Could be the crazy high nutrients from over feeding though, lol. :what:

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