How hot is to hot?

[hansonfam]

Just out of curiosity what is the ideal temp range? I have always kept mine at about 80 but it spiked yesterday to 82 and everyone seemed okay. My anemone finally closed his mouth when it was that warm.( he had just been purchased Sun) And he spread himself right out and ate.:)


Just want to be sure i am not cooking anything. It is back down to 80 now and everything seems okay.

Thanks
Lisa

[akrimmel]

you have asked a loaded question as everyone will say something different as to what temp to keep your tank at?

[m3rcury]

i keep mine in the 79-82 range. i've seen it go up to 84 for a brief period of time and had no significant impact. i would be scared to keep it at 84 for any length of time though. for me, that is the absolute top of the temp range.

however, i just talked to a guy this weekend that has an extremely successful 130 and he keeps his temp in the 76-79 range. he had a beautiful tank. of course, this is a guy that has somehow made an incredibly successful tank that goes against almost all conventional wisdom. for example, his lighting consists of 5 units of lighting that each have 4 standard 150 watt energy saver lightbulbs (like the ones you would put in your lamps around the house). he has asolutely no problem keeping hard and soft corals. as he said, his lighting setup cost around $50.

so, as akrimmel said above, you will get a huge number of different answers.

[chopsuey]

Have a look at the thead I opened yesterday.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=942132 (http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=942132)

It shows a good range of a lot of RC memebrs temps.

[Bebo77]

you can keep your tank between 75-82 with no real problem.. but the trick is to have little to no swing...

[Dan9]

I keep mine around 79

[theatrus]

One benefit of higher temperatures is faster metabolisms which may lead to higher growth rates.

[Paintbug]

at around 85ºF zooxanthellae starts to die. so thats to hot. :) as long as you dont keep the temp above that long you probably wont even notice anything. i keep my tank around 79º-80ºF. the key is consistancy. you dont want it to swing that much during a day. 1ºF -/+ is about all you want max. anywhere between 76º-83ºF will work, but its best to keep it in the middle. that way if something goes wrong, you have a little buffer to hopefully catch it before its too late.

[bertoni]

My tank has spiked to 86 F without anything noticing. It went on like that for weeks until I checked the temperature and added a fan. My base temperature is 82 F, though. I think most tropical reef corals start showing stress by the mid-90s, if not earlier, depending on a lot of factors.