Temp swing at night help

absoluteNANOreef · Feb 28, 2020

Hey everyone. I got my frag tank setup but noticed a small issue. At night we lower our heat in certain parts of the home to 64. The tank gets down to 75 at night and then back up to 78.5 during the day. Should I be concerned about this or upgrade heater again? Cold weather is almost over, so I would rather hold on if the swing isn’t too bad. I’m already way over my expected expenses.

YankeeTankee · Feb 28, 2020

absoluteNANOreef said:
Hey everyone. I got my frag tank setup but noticed a small issue. At night we lower our heat in certain parts of the home to 64. The tank gets down to 75 at night and then back up to 78.5 during the day. Should I be concerned about this or upgrade heater again? Cold weather is almost over, so I would rather hold on if the swing isn’t too bad. I’m already way over my expected expenses.

In the wild its common to see temp swings around 2 -3 degrees so I would not worry about it. When you start approaching 5 degrees then I'd step in. Simple things like a lid on your sump might help at night.

W1ngz · Feb 28, 2020

I wouldn't worry about a 3° day-night cycle, but a tank that doesn't maintain temperature is going to be because the heater is undersized for the needs.

Fishy212 · Feb 28, 2020

You can easily lay a blanket on top of your tank to retain heat.... definitely the least expensive option and it works! Haha

lilgrounchuck · Feb 28, 2020

The ocean fluctuates like that naturally. As long as it's a gradual transition back and forth and not a 10 degree shock drop you should be fine. My tank swings about 2-3 degrees between night and day as well and it's been up for a year with everything growing happily. I had no idea until I added a reef pi a few weeks ago.

absoluteNANOreef · Feb 29, 2020

YankeeTankee said:
In the wild its common to....

W1ngz said:
I wouldn't worry about a 3° day-night cycle, but a ...

Fishy212 said:
You can easily lay a ...

lilgrounchuck said:
The ocean fluctuates like that ...

Okay, cool. Thanks everyone. I guess I’ll be leaving it as is for now until I see someone post up a nice heater on here for a decent price. If not, I’ll upgrade before next winter. Should start warming up here soon so I won’t have to worry for a while. Corals seem to be doing okay. I upgraded the return pump too and it’s holding temp a bit better overnight now.

Thanks again all

aqua_code · Feb 29, 2020

I keep my sump in my garage. It helps to put a couple space heaters in there.

This works well for me. Just make sure it's always submerged in water:

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If you think you need 100w, would go with 200w in a cold room. I usually put 2-3x the recommended heaters in a tank I know will be fighting low ambient temperature.

grisha · Feb 29, 2020

My tank is in the basement, I dealt with the same issue. here is what was happening
Heater/tank size recommendations are based on the tempers assumed in our home. I realized 2 150 watt heaters are struggling to heat up 90 gallon system in room temperature 55 F
I added 300 watt heater and this solved my problem.
We need more power on our heaters to heat our gallons to 80 f In near freezing cold rooms

splitting_lanes · Feb 29, 2020

I used this on line calculator to get my heater right-sized, which was less than what the LFS wanted to sell me.

right sized heater won’t cook the tank if it sticks on, or raise temps too quickly.