omg heater malfunction HELP!!

[fishboyy]

this morning i left to do some errands and the tank was at 80.6 and i came home later that afternoon and the heater malfunctioned ??and the temp was 86.7. so immediatly i floated 2 small bags of ice(its a 24 gallon aquapod) ,to get the temp down to 83. then left one small bag like 5 pices of ice in there to slowly bring it down to 81. did i do te right thing or did bring the temp down that rapidly hurt them??? also what are some side affects will the corals bleach out, i have mostly acros and alll are very new ORA frags under a week but i have had the tank and heater for over a year, is there anything that could have triggered the heather to malfunction??? any suggestions to save them thanks i appreciate it so much!!

[nietzsche]

i can't really help you out with that since it didnt happen to me, but only the opposite: tank went down to low 60s.

i wouldnt keep that heater in there, just buy another one

how do the corals look?

[jay24k]

Why do you even use a heater in florida? I only put one in if the temp in the house is goin to drop super low. 86 is not bad at all imo. I had my tank run that during the summer two years ago consistently. You should have no issues.

[fishboyy]

i have only started to run a heater when we moved to saint augustine its gets really cold 30's a few nights a year and alot of nights drop 50 or less in the winter, the tank would drop wayyy low like 74 so u just keep it set to 80 so i dont have to worry about it droping, thanks im glad nothing should be affected

[fishboyy]

the corals look ok not great no polyp extention for the acros one mille looks good and the new zoos are all closed up but my favia and plate look normal

[poppin_fresh]

most heaters suck when it comes to keeping accurate temp. I will never trust a heater to be accurate again. I also would recommend a couple smaller heaters rather than one large one. If one smaller heater sticks on it alone cant boil a tank.

[jay24k]

I was just up there and it was a bit chilly. I would set your thermometer to 77 just in case. Another method people use is to use two. Make sure one itself can't raise the temp of the tank much. If it fails and sticks on, the other can turn off and there is no issues.

[MrSquid]

Originally posted by poppin_fresh
most heaters suck when it comes to keeping accurate temp. I will never trust a heater to be accurate again. I also would recommend a couple smaller heaters rather than one large one. If one smaller heater sticks on it alone cant boil a tank.

Same here. I also picked up a Ranco controller to be safe. I had a heater stick on in my FW tank years agon - not gonna trust them again!

[DaveG99]

Reefs get to about 88 degrees in many parts of the world every summer.