Temperature fluctuation

mikesilverado8888 · Mar 28, 2016

How big of a deal is temperature fluctuation I live in old house sometimes my tank is 80° sometimes it's 75°. I try to keep it at 77

TheEngineer · Mar 28, 2016

How much does your tank temp swing? I try and keep my tank within 1 degree of the set temp.

mikesilverado8888 · Mar 28, 2016

icecool2 said:
How much does your tank temp swing? I try and keep my tank within 1 degree of the set temp.

Yeah it's not good it was 80 last night now it's 75

TD13 · Mar 28, 2016

Within a degree or 2 is best. The tighter the better.

mikesilverado8888 · Mar 28, 2016

TD13 said:
Within a degree or 2 is best. The tighter the better.

I guess I knew that but I just wanted someone to say na it's ok lol. What do you think will happen now that it's more then 5°

TD13 · Mar 28, 2016

Don't think your coral will be happy. Temp swings like that have killed coral reefs. Is your heater in a good flow area?

R_C · Mar 28, 2016

What is the temp you have your heater set to? If you already have it set to 78 or so then you may need to replace your heater or get another one to help maintain the temp.

Lionfish Lair · Mar 28, 2016

If it swings as high as 80, why not set your heater to that temp so it remains there. Then there will be no drop.

Temperature is one on the more stress influencing factors for fish. There are a lot of studies on food fish and fluctuations. For me, I don't mess or test for much in my tanks, but I am very aware of temp.

P-Dub · Jun 5, 2018

I know that this is an old and dead thread but, I just wanted to throw my 2 pennies in the ring with my anecdotal observations. The temperature swings are not what is going to kill a coral or a coral reef per se. I have seen and experienced wild temperature fluctuations, as much as 5 or more degrees, in both the reef tank and the natural reef. Tide shifts, currents, thermoclines, and rain have all caused wild fluctuations throughout the hour, day, week, or month. I have seen reefs fully exposed to the air and the blazing tropical sun for almost an hour and they still do just fine. What kills corals and reefs is prolonged high or low temperatures like those being experienced due to increased ocean temperatures, along with ocean acidification, silt, and pollution. These combinations are what doom whole reefs. Yes, the more stable all the parameters the better. I would not stress over fluctuations of 1-3 degrees in a day too much. Do your best to maintain stable parameters but give these corals a little more credit for their tenacity. We pull them out of the water, cut them up, handle them, throw super glue on them and they still do fine.

Bretttats · Aug 20, 2018

I agree... I have no heater or Chiller on my tank never have ...temperature stays between 75&79 degrees ...temperature fluctuations is normal

Bretttats · Aug 20, 2018

Temperature fluctuation is normal... I've never had a heater or a chiller on my tank and never had a problem my temperature fluctuates from 75 to about 78 degrees daily

MattThomas · Jun 3, 2019

My 2 cents on this old post is that the sun goes down and so does the water temperature world wide, the sun comes up the temp goes up... That's in any body of natural water on the planet, maybe it's 2 degrees or 5 or 20 nature does it's own thing and everything adapts or dies. You're fine. It's going to survive as long as you don't go under 75° I'd imagine you're fine, and like someone else stated just bump the temp up to 80 so it only drops to like 77 degrees where coral still thrives in...