Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

Ive been looking these up, and am not finding anything definitive enough for me.

This is going to be a noob question, but its been almost 3 years since Ive had a tank setup so please excuse my noobishness

Ive had my tank running for about 3 days. I got my lights and all setup. Just wanted to get all of my hardware up and tested. Anyway, the temp in my tank got up to 81 yesterday. Im going to say given that that 82-83 could be a max temp on a really bad day. Ive been running my lights longer then normal and on different cycles then I would with fish and such. (I normally turn them on around 9am just actintic, 11am full lights, 7pm back to actintics and then 9pm off)

Anyway, Im wondering what you guys would call a safe fluctuation. I can let it get cooler at nite and make it easier to stay cooler longer during the day.

Is 82-83 too high?

Im just missing the little things in my head on this now. (getting old)

Im going to keep reading, but just wanted to ask here as well. Thanks in advance.

To add to this, Im wanting to expoxy my intake elbow to my skimmer back togther. I know I could use superglue gel, and I might if that is my only option. Im just wondering if there is any epoxy that is reef safe that you guys would recommend.

Really, you should be ok with that. My smaller tank get's up to 82 in the heat of the day, the corals sometimes get a little grumpy about it but nothing seems to suffer too much because of it. It usually falls to about 79 or so at night.
The biggest problem I've had was when temps went up after Katrina and the house got so hot. The tanks were about 88 for a couple of days. I had some definate issues with the corals after that. Even then though, the losses were minimal. I had expected much worse. The fish came thru just fine, thankfully.

Oh, and I am not an expert on this at all, but I would think if you use an epoxy and let it cure completely it would be fine. I use pvc cement on pipe fittings, just let it dry before using. You might want to get some other opinions, though.

Those temps are just fine. Keep in mind that the average temperature on healthy reefs (year-round) is ~82 degrees Fahrenheit (the actualy number was something like 81.89). Corals kept in this temperature are less likely to bleach in response to another temp increase, too.

As far as the epoxy goes, I would let it cure, depending upon what it contains. I would rather be safe than sorry in these instances, anyway.

I don’t see any problems with the temps that high. Mine goes from 79 – 82. I also run mine toward the end of the day so the lights don’t heat the house any more then it has to. The only thing that you may have problems with in the future is and algae outbreak with your tank lights on for 12 hours.

As far as running my lights 12 hours, I might cut back a little, but I do want to make sure I have them lit during the evening hours when I will enjoy it most.

Thanks again for the temps. I didnt quite remember how much of a daily swing was livable.

Geez Andrew....you just pop up out of nowhere these days. What have you been keeping yourself busy with these days?

Yeah. I go through phases with forums. It's funny, since I sort of fall off the face of the earth for a while, only to suddenly jump back in .

Now Im more worried about my temps.

Since I added in the rock and sand, I now have less water in the tank and it looks like the temps are going to rise even more. Its up to 83 right now, and Im hoping thats all it will do. I can probably live with that. Im just not sure how much more I would want to go.

If I end up having to add some cooling fans, could you guys make some suggestions? Im not the best with wiring so anything that might be plug and play basically would be great, but I can do a little wiring that might not be hard.

Again, as before, thanks in advance.

We run our tank on a reverse light schedule. They come on at about 6 PM and go off at about 4 AM. We do that for two reasons. First off the overall house temp is cooler at night, therefor the overall tank temp is cooler. And two, our air conditioner has to fight hard enough during the day to combat the outdoor heat without having to combat the heat generated by the tank. We found that when we reversed the light schedule our power bill dropped significantly. Besides, we weren't here during the day to see the tank anyway. The lights come on about the time we get home so it works out beautifully and our tank stays a comfortable 79-80 degrees or so. Keep in mind that on our 500 gallon we ran 6 400 watt MH's so it got really hot. We ran 2 small fans that we bought from Radio Shack and reversed the light schedule and still maintained an 80 degree temp most of the time.

As for the epoxy...Charlie used regular PVC cement (I think) on all the stuff in our tank. Just make sure it cures completely and you shouldnt have a problem.

Good luck...