Originally posted by ren99
Snipe, evilbob; I think both of you guys have a point. Within the half hour after I turn on the lights, it will heat the water 1 or 2 degrees no matter what the heater is up to. But after a few hours, if the heater is off, the temperature would come back down.
I think it would be rather hard to control this fluctuation. The question really is that is a 2 degree fluctuation okay for the fishes and invertes? I would imagine that the sun would have same effect on ocean from day to nigth. No?
From what I understand, keeping the tempature from fluctuating is more important than the actual temp (as long as it is somewhat reasonable). I would think a 1 or 2 degree difference would be ok, although I'm not the one to answer that question.
The sun doesn't change the water temp very quickly. Think about it like this: ever go swimming in Febuary? Even if the air is abnormally warm, the water will still be coooold. Also, if the sunlight is right on the fish, they can swim into a hole or down deeper to get away, but they can't in an aquarium. (Well, they could swim into a hole, but it wouldn't be any cooler.)