Help! high water temps

[gianna]

We just started our salt water tank about 3 months ago and our water temp rises for no apparent reason. We have never turned our heaters on and our lighting is just the standard lighting that came with the tank (with new bulbs). The temp is up to 84 F and it is worrying us. Does anyone have any idea why? It is not by a window, and we keep our house temp at about 74F. we can't afford a chiller yet but is there any way to cool it down a few degrees?

Tank info: 55 gallon
Live rock, 3" sand bed, 2 clowns, a few shrimp, 1 crab, and some recently purchased ricordea.
Lighting: standard hood lighting

[Nas19320]

Do you have a glass cover? Also powerheads and return pumps put a certain amount of heat into the tank.

[Gudwyn]

Have you tried setting up a clip-on fan that blows across the water surface? With a 10 degree spread, it should cool off significantly.

Also some tanks come with glass covers for the whole surface. Try taking em off. If necessary you can use "egg-crate" light diffusers from Home Depot to keep the fish from jumping out.

[sambryce]

Ditto....remove the glass top if you have one. That dropped my temp ~5 degrees. Try putting a fan in your canopy or blowing on your sump, too.

With 550W VHO and PC plus 2 icecap fans mounted in the canopy, my tank stays 79-81 even through the hot Texas summer. The heater even comes on at night to keep it from dropping below 79.

[gianna]

The cover is mostly plastic and I do run a wave maker, could that be doing it?
I could take the hood off and run a fan onto the surface but I have 2 himalayan persians and I don't want any floating cat hair getting into the tank, would this happen?

[sambryce]

Evaporation is the easiest way to cool your tank. I doubt any return pumps or power heads are causing much heat buildup. I thought my Mag 9.5 was part of my problem, but it just turned out to be the glass cover on the tank.

Do you have a sump? If so, put the fan on it instead. You still may have to take the cover off...especially if you end up with hotter lights.

84 is really not that hot. I wouldn't want it to go much higher though. The temperature swings are what's a bigger problem. How low does the temp get at night? Before I took the cover off mine, it would swing from 80-86 through the day.

[gianna]

It has been going from 78 to 84. i am going to go ahead and take the top off and put a fan on it. We are in the middle of building a canopy for the tank so that we can upgrade to vho and actinic lights. With that being 10 inches off the tank maybe the airflow will keep it cooler. Maybe we can go ahead and mount that with are current lights and get some ventilation going through.

[gianna]

but will our lights be strong enough?

[sambryce]

VHO's will be plenty for all but the most light demanding SPS. I've got some Montipora and a Squamosa clam on the sand 26" below the surface.

Place the fans blowing into the canopy to keep from sucking salty air into the fan. It'll last longer that way.

I have two fans mounted on the back of my canopy angled down about 20 degrees to the water's surface. There is about a 1/2" gap between my canopy and the tank all the way around for the air to escape.

[gianna]

It's working! The temp is down to 82 already. Thank you very much everyone!

[malx]

Ahh the glass top... Ill probably end up taking mine off too.. haha. If I did this what would I use to keep the fish from jumping out?

[spydergst98]

USe Egg Crate from Home Depot ($9 bucks for a sheet in the lighting area)

Just cut it to size and your good to go.

Later,

[malx]

Thanks I'll look for that when I am at Home Depot this Saturday morning.

[griss]

Hey guys, keep in mind the optimal temp for a reef tank is 80-82 degrees;)

George

[ch0b1ts]

And don't neglect your other equipments emitting heats too. Small heat adds up.

Just my 2 cents..

[malx]

Will that work with invertabrates? Can shrimp and lobsters etc. take a temperature of 80-82 degrees?