Temp swings

[holdyourlight]

last night was warm for Michigan in November and my tank got up to 82.6. I woke up to the alarm beeping on my temp prob bc the tank was too hot. I killed the heater and went to work. Called home and 5 hours later the tank is at 77.6. 5 degrees temp swing in a few hours. What kind of adverse effects can i expect if any?

 

[Nanofins]

Honestly I don't see that being a big problem. The temps didn't really hit any real kill ranges, and passive cooling shouldn't have brought on any major stress.

Wouldn't make a regularly habit of it, but...

 

[JR's Reef]

In the summers here I use to have big temp swings before changing over to T5s. Mine would swing from 78* to 83* some days and never lost anything from it.

 

[holdyourlight]

thanks guys.....seasons changing are always the worst.....guess i should look into getting a ranco or something of the sort.........

 

[JR's Reef]

thanks guys.....seasons changing are always the worst.....guess i should look into getting a ranco or something of the sort.........

Thats a good idea. It could be your heater going bad. Ive seen alot of people lose thousands of dollars of stuff with heaters going bad. I lost alot one time myself. Ive had 3 heaters to go bad in the 6yrs Ive had my tank Ill never use one without a fail safe again.

 

[holdyourlight]

Thats a good idea. It could be your heater going bad. Ive seen alot of people lose thousands of dollars of stuff with heaters going bad. I lost alot one time myself. Ive had 3 heaters to go bad in the 6yrs Ive had my tank Ill never use one without a fail safe again.

is your failsafe a Ranco? can you reccomend one unit over another?
thanks

 

[stunreefer Verified Sponsor]

Any external controller to serve as a secondary on/off switch will (should) suffice. Rancos or another controller lilke the RK lite or the big boys such as RKE, Apex, etc.

 

[MikeB]

Thats a good idea. It could be your heater going bad. Ive seen alot of people lose thousands of dollars of stuff with heaters going bad. I lost alot one time myself. Ive had 3 heaters to go bad in the 6yrs Ive had my tank Ill never use one without a fail safe again.

This thread got me wanting a fail safe for my heater. THis happened to use one time, Temp was 90 in the tank. THis was when we were fiurst starting this hobby lost a few things, mainly LPS.

What types of Fail Safes are out there for heaters?

 

[holdyourlight]

thanks stun
my system is very simple, no dosing or anything..so i would like to go with the simplest model with the least bells and whistles, just need it to control the temp!

 

[THEMADREEFER]

Mine swings 5-6 deg in a day but never exceeds 84 deg. you should be fine

 

[JR's Reef]

is your failsafe a Ranco? can you reccomend one unit over another?
thanks

I use a RK2 but was using a ACjr just something else to cut it off if it goes bad. Also I use a smaller heater than my tank needs it takes a bit longer to heat the tank but will take forever to over heat the tank. Alot of people use 2 small heaters in stead of 1 just incase 1 goes bad it wont over heat the tank or you will notice the temp going up slowly that way you have time to fix it before it becomes a problem

 

[Paul_N]

This thread got me wanting a fail safe for my heater. THis happened to use one time, Temp was 90 in the tank. THis was when we were fiurst starting this hobby lost a few things, mainly LPS.

What types of Fail Safes are out there for heaters?

I say controllers and redundancy(multiple heaters). I figure if the heater is stuck on, the controller will cut the power. If one heater goes bad and doesn't turn on, the other will.