BioCube 8 - need some advice - Temperature Control

Hi. having some issues with temperature control. Anyone else with a BioCube with advice. The unit is stock and after 8 hours the temp gets to 80°F. Over night with only the LED's the tank drops to 76°F. My LFS thinks this caused some stress with one of my clowns - think it was/is some type of fungus which I scraped off, but it may be coming back. BTW - got a cleaner shrimp to try and attack this issue and have been dosing with garlick AND have some Marine Max on order. I purchased a 50 watt heater for the sump and have been struggling to get it set correctly. My worry is that if the heater maintains a temp of 80° at night the latent heat will build while the lights are on during the day (this happend today). Any suggestions on how to maintain temperature. PS The room temp is between 70 and 72. Thanks in advance.

 

I would say increase the size of the vents. Another one is to remove the lid and use a different light fixture.

 

A different fixture is an option or you can get one of those internal computer fans and rig that up inside the light housing to increase air circulation. If you don't want to do all of that, just pointing a fan at the tank will help a little also. One more thing to do is to leave the two doors on top open, the one that is over the back chambers and the one that you feed through.

 

The BioCube 8 has only one door so I will give that a shot before embarking on alot of customization.
I would be very interested to know where your systems are running temperature wise.
I did put the heater on the same circuit as my moon LEDs so the heater will never come on at the same time as the lights during the day.

I see you are in school in Rolla, MO. Just outside Ft. Leonard Wood right? Pretty country. Do you have your DT with you at school? IF so, how does that work?

 

Good move. I have the same cube as you. The top comes off easily, just remove the hinge pins. I don't have it running right now, but did not have temp issues when using as a freshwater tank.

 

Ecoxotic Panorama LED Module

Check that link out....Ive seen them used in a biocube...Just one of those strips in an 8 will supplement both of the PC lights and more. I had a chance to talk to the designer of them (he lives up the street from me) and he uses them for all his tanks.

 

Temp swings of around 76-80 over the course of a day sound fine to me. I personally wouldn't worry too much about it. I think your clown stress problems are rooted in the size of the tank they are housed in.

~Will.

 

My tank stays stable at 78, granted the ambient temp is around 65 and I have an open top bc29. Yes, my tank is here with me at school. I'm renting a house with some friends and the tank is doing just fine. In the dorms I was limited on size so I had to wait to get this tank until I moved off campus, but now everything is going great.