Taking Heat about my heater

Randall_James · #1 12/12/2007, 01:14 PM

In past threads I have taken a bit of abuse over my allowing my tanks to bounce around on temperature and typically not using a heater...
My theory was that a "to stable" of a tank weakened corals making them more susceptible to disease and bleaching.. By stressing the corals, they would in fact be more tolerant of swings in tank conditions should some type of other issue arrise.. (I only had personal observation on this)

This was in part backed up by a couple other "casual" observers and now it appears that there is some authoritative information on this subject...

Quote:

A December 2007 study by the Wildlife Conservation Society found that corals in "tough love" seas with wide-ranging temperatures are more likely to survive warming waters than corals in what had been stable environments.

The full article is here... is pretty interesting..
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22028590/

REEF-n-Chicago · #2 12/12/2007, 01:38 PM

I have no sound backing for my opinion but I can see how it would work. How long have you been doing this and what do you keep? (Sorry if this has been discussed prior)

scrmbld33 · #3 12/12/2007, 01:46 PM

very interesting, about how many degrees does your tank vary?

Achapman · #4 12/12/2007, 01:46 PM

Makes sense, just like the human body always taking medicine instead of toughing it out and letting our immune system handle it.

john rochon · #5 12/12/2007, 01:47 PM

okay were talking about what, thousands upon thousands of years in a certain condition, and your comparing that to fluctuations in your tank?? not even close to the same thing.
get a heater for gods sakes LOL. your actually probaly weakening
your corals by the added stress of these not so constant temps.
its like saying, ''why don't I just use tap water and topoff when I remember, it'll only help my corals in the long term''
not very logical

john rochon · #6 12/12/2007, 01:51 PM

also toughing out an illness can lead to death of a human being!
not a good comparision. most medications are from natural sources by the way. if you had a splitting headache would you tuff it out or take a tylenol?
taking medication in most case for common things does nothing to hurt or weaken the immune system.
now if your talking about the abbuse of antibiotics thats an issue amongst itself but sometimes theres no recourse but to take them.

WarrenAmy&Maddy · #7 12/12/2007, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Randall_James
In past threads I have taken a bit of abuse over my allowing my tanks to bounce around on temperature and typically not using a heater...
My theory was that a "to stable" of a tank weakened corals making them more susceptible to disease and bleaching.. By stressing the corals, they would in fact be more tolerant of swings in tank conditions should some type of other issue arrise.. (I only had personal observation on this)

This was in part backed up by a couple other "casual" observers and now it appears that there is some authoritative information on this subject...

The full article is here... is pretty interesting..
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22028590/

what temp range are speaking of???
i havent hooked my heaters up yet for the winter... although its warm around here it gets cold at nite... right now my temps have been going down to 72-74 at nite then heating back up to around 76-77 during the daytime and after the lites come back on... have just been lazy and cant seem to find heaters but i havent noticed anything seemingly significant happening w/ the corals (primarily LPS)... if anything (big if) offhand observation is it seems as though i am getting more coralline algae growing around the tank - havent done a water change in 2 mos (water parameters still 'good' though) which cant attribute this to anything else going on...

additionally... during summer mos
havent run a chiller yet and live in desert... using fans my temps stayed betw 78-84/85... when summer first started whenever the temps would start to climb betw 84-85 things started to show signs of 'stress' during this time i was waiting it out to see if the 50gal fuge added to system would naturally bring phosphates down at aroung .05+/- ... BUT once i added the phosphate reactor and brought the phosphates down... there were days when the temps would climb to 86-87 and the corals DID NOT show signs of stress - very noticeable observation!...

moral of the story = importance of overall water quality!

regards

greenbean36191 · #8 12/12/2007, 02:15 PM

Randall, this isn't a new idea. There has been quite a bit of research supporting the idea that regular fluctuations of up to 12 degrees make corals much more resistant to elevated temperatures outside of the normal range. In a hypothetical situation a coral from a constant 78 degrees might show severe stress at 82 while a coral from an area that ranges 76-82 might go on metabolizing normally up to 90. The exact mechanism that causes this isn't known for corals, but there are a few possibilities that have been studied in other animals such as gobies and "margarita" snails.

Despite the almost constant repetition within the hobby that fluctuations will kill or stress our animals, there is very little research supporting that belief. The best evidence is people losing their tanks due to temp spikes, but that seems to me like a self-fulfilling prophecy given what we know about thermal tolerance of corals.

Just FWIW my tank ranges from 78-86 and has gotten up to a bit above 90 with no visible signs of stress. I keep everything from zoas to Acropora.

ryanpal · #9 12/12/2007, 02:39 PM

that is interesting.

speaking of heaters. mine broke yesterday. it actually caused my box to kill the circuit. as a result my water temp dropped to 65. (this was normally at 76/78) i put in a backup heater and rose it too 72 (i didn't want to stress too much by putting all the way back to 76/78). some how it seemed everything is surviving. i hope it stays that way. 65 is pretty low and im surprised things seemed to rebound.

miwoodar · #10 12/12/2007, 03:56 PM

Randall_James - I've seen you discuss temp swings before and I buy into the idea that if your corals have become accustomed to temp swings, they will be more durable should you have a serious high/low temp episode. I would let my tank swing more if I could be assured that everyone I trade with would do the same.

How do you acclimate new corals to your temp swings?

BTW - I moved my tank almost exactly a year ago. Despite my best efforts, the water was 68 degrees when I flipped the switch to fire the tank back up at the new house. I didn't loose a thing. All of my fish, SPS, snails, everything, made it A-OK.

greenbean36191 · #11 12/12/2007, 05:32 PM

Quote:

How do you acclimate new corals to your temp swings?

That's the million dollar question. If they're coming from the wild then there may not be any need for acclimation. If they're coming from someone else's tank then the answer seems to be as simple as putting them under lower light, which is something that's generally recommended anyway. Thermal stress and illumination are closely tied and under lower light corals show less stress due to temp changes.

kmf507 · #12 12/12/2007, 10:27 PM

These are living things. Yes they are fragile, but they are also resilient. Would you drop dead if you are not constantly kept at 78 degrees? What about corals in very shallow areas, do you really think the temp never fluctuates? I have a heater, but it is set pretty low and is only really there for a back up. Halides and pumps keep my temps up.

I also think we tend to keep our tanks at a lower temp than necessary. I've done some reading and in the last 8 months, raised my average temp to 81, but it fluctuates from 79 to 82 on any given day.

Randall_James · #13 12/13/2007, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by john rochon
okay were talking about what, thousands upon thousands of years in a certain condition, and your comparing that to fluctuations in your tank?? not even close to the same thing.
get a heater for gods sakes LOL. your actually probaly weakening
your corals by the added stress of these not so constant temps.
its like saying, ''why don't I just use tap water and topoff when I remember, it'll only help my corals in the long term''
not very logical

egads man what has this got to do with the subject? temperature and chemistry are pretty unrelated as in the statement I made...

Anyway, 10-12 daily swings are not unheard of in my tanks and 5-10 are most certainly every day. Winter temps range 72-82 and summer temps might be 2 -3 degrees higher

greenbean36191 · #14 12/13/2007, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Anyway, 10-12 daily swings are not unheard of in my tanks and 5-10 are most certainly every day.

And not just in your tanks, but the wild as well, which makes the paranoia about stressing your animals with temperature fluctuations seem so silly.

john rochon · #15 12/13/2007, 01:46 PM

okay what about all the tanks that HAVE crashed or have RTN'd due to spikes, theres a hell of a lot more of those than whats posted in this thread. and how are you/we supposed to know exactly were our bought corals came from?
theres also other things happening when you tank goes thru spikes and drops not just temp, but O2 ph etc..

what about the experts and there reasearch into the MASSIVE dieoff of coral reefs due to heating of the ocean.

guys our tanks are NOT the ocean so we do not know why some areas can handle spikes while others can't.

its common sence to try to have a stable tank in ALL aspects as much as possible. why would you not have a heater or chiller if needed? and how do you know theres no chemical link between stable temps and unstable temps? you don't.
perfect example, corals slough slime when stressed or theres some change, this in itself can cause any number of other corals
to react. you could kill some of your corals by NOT regulating your tank. maybe not now or a few months down the road but it will happen.

god theres got to be a TON of threads correlating coral death due to heat spike or flucuating temps

john rochon · #16 12/13/2007, 01:49 PM

sorry to flame but anyone who lets there tank swing over 10 degrees is just waiting for a disaster.

miwoodar · #17 12/13/2007, 04:50 PM

Maybe you should go back to the OP.

Indeed, if they are not used to abuse, then they might not be able to handle it when they do get abused. I know this about myself, 50 degrees farenheit feels cold in August but warm in March. I kind of think about my corals in much the same way. If they become accustomed to temp swings they will learn to deal with it.

Quote:

Originally posted by Randall_James
In past threads I have taken a bit of abuse over my allowing my tanks to bounce around on temperature and typically not using a heater...
My theory was that a "to stable" of a tank weakened corals making them more susceptible to disease and bleaching.. By stressing the corals, they would in fact be more tolerant of swings in tank conditions should some type of other issue arrise.. (I only had personal observation on this)

This was in part backed up by a couple other "casual" observers and now it appears that there is some authoritative information on this subject...

The full article is here... is pretty interesting..
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22028590/

greenbean36191 · #18 12/13/2007, 06:54 PM

Exactly. Almost the entire argument for maintaining stability hinges on the erroneous belief that stability is the norm for reefs and departure from that is stressful.

That belief becomes a self fulfilling prophecy within the hobby. When people believe that fluctuations are harmful to their livestock they try to avoid them. We know from numerous studies both in situ and closed systems, that stable temps greatly reduce the ability to deal with increased or fluctuating temperatures. It's not surprising at all then that people lose their tanks due to entirely natural fluctuations. Those losses do nothing to prove that fluctuations are inherently dangerous, but that people have acclimatized their corals to be unnaturally sensitive to them.

Quote:

what about the experts and there reasearch into the MASSIVE dieoff of coral reefs due to heating of the ocean.

Mass bleaching is due to increasing temps beyond normal limits and staying there for for days to weels. It's not due to short term spikes and it's not due to fluctuations within the normal range.

Quote:

guys our tanks are NOT the ocean so we do not know why some areas can handle spikes while others can't.

Stating that our tanks aren't the ocean is a cop-out. That's obvious and immaterial. There is nothing inherent about captivity that changes the physiological responses of our livestock and we know from stress tests performed in captivity that the observations we see in the wild hold true in closed systems.

Quote:

and how are you/we supposed to know exactly were our bought corals came from?

This question is no more important than if you keep your tank at a stable temp.