high temp

[subvillian]

My Lights are on legs 4 inches above the glass cover top. And i am still getting temp at 82. They are some bad ass HQIs but they heat the tank up to much. I am forced to keep them off for most of the day. My tank is in a cool enough room with out any windows. HOW Do I GET The TEMP down.???

 

[mikeyjer]

Originally Posted by SubVillian
My Lights are on legs 4 inches above the glass cover top. And i am still getting temp at 82. They are some bad ass HQIs but they heat the tank up to much. I am forced to keep them off for most of the day. My tank is in a cool enough room with out any windows. HOW Do I GET The TEMP down.???
Do you have a top on the tank? A good way to lower the temp is by placing a fan blowing across the water surface while the lights are on. You'll have a lot of evaportaion so keep those RO water handy. I've been dealing with that myself! It's either that or buy a chiller to keep your temperature down which it's very costly for both electric and the chiller itself. But I want to eventually keep a reef myself, IF I can't keep the temp constant, I will be forced to buy a chiller myself. Good Luck! :happyfish

 

[db]

You must remove the glass top. You will not be able to over come your temp problem. The glass top is lessing the intensity of your lights, keep your temp high, and preventing good gass exchange. I run 2x250w DE MH's on my 72 and am able to keep the temp around 78-79 with two small fans. You will be suprised how much a small fan across the surface will lower the temp. I also have one on the sump if you have one. A temperature around 82 is not going to kill anything, but it would be nice to keep it a few degrees cooler. I would say most things are safe up to 84. It's the large changes in temp that are more of a problem.

 

[danedodger]

(paraphrased from Marine Invertebrates by Ronald L. Shimek, phd In the wild your average ocean reef is about 81 degrees. Of most of the reefs out there temps are recorded from 78 to 86 degrees. Dr. Shimek's opinion is that almost all reef animals will do best at 81 to 84 degrees.
Now that being said most people don't keep their tanks up that high it seems. Hmmm maybe because at higher temps our aquarium critters need more oxygen content in the water which they would certainly get in the wild (ALL that surface area and constant wave action aerating the water) but may not get enough of with our more crude, manmade equipment. I'd say if the temp stays at 82 degrees all the time you're probably ok but could stand to come down a teeny bit. On the other hand, if it's 82 with the lights on then plummets a few degrees with the lights off that's a problem. It's not the temp so much as the stability of the temp you keep them at.