Reef Tank Temperatures; Mine's now at 75F...

Increased temp (to a point) will result in better growth and probably better coloration (haven't really looked into this part). In my case its not about the corals, so much as a specific fish.

I would like to see some studies on the effects of temperature on coral growth/coloration.

 

I'm fairly new to reefs but from my studies, it seemed like 78 -80 was the preferred temps for most of what I have seen, thus I have been striving for 78 -80..my tank maintained 80 -82 most of the summer.. it's been 78-79 for a month solid now and I really don't see any difference... My way of thinking ( and I do this for my fresh water tanks as well) is to maintain stability... and by keeping the tank temps in the "middle" of the preferred range, if I monitor the temp daily ( morning and night in my case) I'm much less prone to a "fish fry" or "freeze out" if a heater were to fail... and in an non air conditioned home... I have a little "fudge" factor if the house gets too hot in summer ... because in my neck of the woods... the oppressive heat never stays around for long...

 

I don't remember seeing a chiller on your tank Todd. Are you just lowering the temp on your heaters? Im assuming that lowering the temp should not be too difficult for you since you don't appear to have much that adds heat to your system. Im interested to see your results, particularly algae growth.

 

I know from Diving in the Keys in January and February - the water gets in the low to mid 70's and things look great there. I personally keep my reef between 75.5 and 78 and everyone seems happy. I have heard that if you are keeping fish only - higher temps are a great way to control parasites.

 

Today I installed a window fan hoping it will help with tank temp as I used to open and close the fish room door and window to keep in check.

 

I keep mine at 78-78.5. Controller works great at keeping the temp in a small range.

 

Thanks to all the replieds, and reads for that matter.

No, no chiller on my system. The temp drop kinda started when my GFCI to my sump area was off for at least a 1/2 day, maybe a bit more recently. It was in the low 70's.
I'm now keeping it at 75-76F, don't see any changes- certainly not negative ones.

To a point, coral are very flexible and adapt rather easily to light and tmps changes, provided that the mean of the change is not extreme.

I'm going to keep trying this atm and feel all will stay well.

 

Keep us posted.

 

I found this very interesting article on this subject.

While I haven't seen any ill effects- yet, I think I'm going to bring it up some back to about 78ish.

 

Hi all,

After some more research on the subject, and a study that premised that many corals use alot of energy just surviving at a slightly lower temperature,
I now keep my Reef system in the 77's and low 78's F.
I think everyone in my system are happy with that.