Help! Overheated Aquarium!

eliramos · Jul 1, 2013

hmmm sounds like a really bad crash,
i think you can lay off the water changes, in such a small volume the constant changes could be doing more bad than good, throwing the ph, salinity, alk etc. i may be wrong but just a guess.

i have the same issues as you i have a 29 gallon biocube and had a bad ammonia spike nothing died immediately but my frogspawn shriveled up pretty badly i did a 80% water change, then lost my mccoskers wrasse
everything else is coming back pretty well.
i think youve done all you can, they may just be suffering from the aftershock of the whole ordeal.
think happy thoughts
good luck!

AZDesertRat · Jul 1, 2013

As the temperature goes up the dissolved oxygen goes down.
Use a fan blowing across the longest dimension of the tanks length and a powerhead that is agitating or rippling the surface so you get good oxygen transfer plus evaporative cooling. This is much better than frozen bottles which have very very limited BTU value and only last a short time.

eliramos · Jul 1, 2013

AZDesertRat said:
As the temperature goes up the dissolved oxygen goes down.
Use a fan blowing across the longest dimension of the tanks length and a powerhead that is agitating or rippling the surface so you get good oxygen transfer plus evaporative cooling. This is much better than frozen bottles which have very very limited BTU value and only last a short time.

also true!

you may look into purchasing an air stone i have a quiet one that i run in the 1st chamber of my biocube seems to be working very well!

blufin · Jul 1, 2013

What's the biggest temperature swing you can have in a tank and not have it cause problems? My tank will range from 71 at night to 75-76 during the day. Time to get a heater?

eliramos · Jul 1, 2013

blufin said:
What's the biggest temperature swing you can have in a tank and not have it cause problems? My tank will range from 71 at night to 75-76 during the day. Time to get a heater?

for fish thats not too bad but anything more than 2 degrees can devastate a reef set up even some fish/invertebrates will take some serious damage!

AZDesertRat · Jul 1, 2013

There are other factors also such as your specific gravity, dissolved oxygen, nitrates and other things that come into play. If the water is pristine and you have good circulation and aeration higher temps or larger swings may not be as big an issue but combined with low oxygen, poor fish respiration and others it could be fatal. Its not just one thing. I try to limit my temp swings to 2 degrees in a 24 hour period but that is not always possible with smaller systems and manual controls. Things like a fan on a timer or temp controller help steady the swings out and can be quite economical.

danimgale · Jul 1, 2013

I have the stock power heads running pointed up so there is always disturbance at the top of the water for oxygenation. I also have two additional power heads that I have on a wave maker so I'm not worried about that. I do think I'm actually going to invest in a chiller to prevent this from happening again. I never thought I needed one because I've never had a problem before but I basically shot myself in the foot with that thought.

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