Perfect Temp ? Help

[brifirst]

What is considered the perfect temperture for a Reef tank for Zoas, Favias and Chalices ? Thanks

[theatrus]

I like targeting 78-80F. Down to 76 and up to 82 depending on your climate.

[brifirst]

Thanks ,,,,,,

[tozzi]

Im always at 79-82 and its all goooood!

[brifirst]

I used to run around 80-81,threw a fan over the sump took it down to like 76 was great for a year or so, recently I replaced my big a** Mag pump with a smaller more effcient unit and I was running around 71, no thermometer so I did not know it, but seem cold when I put my hands in. All seemed good until one of my sweet watermelons started losing a bit of color. Well I took the fan off just now and I will monitor the temp.
Thanks again

[DC_40gallon]

Same 80 daytime and 78 at night

[thegrun]

77-82 is fine for most tropical corals and fish

[crvz]

anywhere from 76-83 should be fine... there's no perfect temp, simply a range that's reasonable assuming your corals are properly acclimated to it.

[Mr James]

Kinda funny that Dr's Foster & Smith recommend 72f - 78f for most corals and fish. When I saw the 72f degree mark, I cringed. I have always kept my tanks at a steady 79f.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/PIC/article.cfm?aid=89

[aleonn]

I target about 78.

[Conrad25]

I run mine at 78-78.8 and thats all that mine varies these days. I used to have it go from 78-81 and I seen more algae growth that was disliked and when I made it perfectly steady, it stop produce algae that was grudged and never had an issue since. I think its more of keeping it steady than the exact temp that you keep it at.

Conrad

[DVA]

Steady temperature is the most important thing. There should not be any more than a 3 degree fluctuation. In the winter we keep our tanks at 78, in spring we slowly start to bring them up so that by summer they are at about 79-81. In the summer when the temperatures rise the tank has already been acclimated to a higher temp and is much easier to keep at the new temp without the use of expensive chillers. I use evaporative cooling only with a fan.

Currently this is a manual process but soon will become automated with a controller.

[crvz]

Originally Posted by DVA

Steady temperature is the most important thing. There should not be any more than a 3 degree fluctuation. In the winter we keep our tanks at 78, in spring we slowly start to bring them up so that by summer they are at about 79-81. In the summer when the temperatures rise the tank has already been acclimated to a higher temp and is much easier to keep at the new temp without the use of expensive chillers. I use evaporative cooling only with a fan.

Currently this is a manual process but soon will become automated with a controller.

depending on the particular tank inhabitants, this 3 degree maximum swing idea may not hold any real merit. consider species collected in tidal lagoons, they can have drastic temperature swings during low tide while the sun cooks the little water volume covering the various corals and/or fish. Swings of 10 degrees are not uncommon.

While I agree that a one time swing of 4-6 degrees is probably going to make for some unhappy critters, if a system is set up such that it has a regular temperature swing like that it's not a show stopper. I'm not arguing for such a paradigm, but it's not incredible to consider.

[greenbean36191]

The idea that less than a 3 degree swing is ideal is entirely baseless.

Most reefs are not stable to within 3 degrees per day, even as deep as 120 ft on the forereef. There is no reason to expect that these conditions are stressful to the animals that live there, which have evolved under those conditions for the past 55 million years, nor has the idea that these fluctuations are stressful been borne out by physiological testing. We've known for a while now that the most resilient reefs and the most resilient corals are those that are exposed to high temperature fluctuations. Just within the last few months new research has also come out showing that at larval corals photosynthesize 25-41% more efficiently under 12 deg F of fluctuations than stable temperatures that mimic either the daily min, max, or average. For adults, 12 degrees of fluctuation had no impact on efficiency compared to any other stable temperature.

Stability simply doesn't matter. What does matter is variation in the maximum temperature. Whether the daily swing is 2 degrees or 10 degrees, the corals acclimatize to the average maximum temperature and their stress threshold is 2-4 degrees above that. While you don't have to worry about how much the temperature varies throughout the day, you don't want to let the daily maximum vary by more than 2 degrees from day to day.

[DVA]

I would love to see the literature or source for this. I'm always open to learn.

I know from my limited experience and observation that my corals do not fare well when the temp drops more than about 6 degrees. They show extreme stress and often take days to recover. And I have lost some from such shifts. I am lucky that I haven't had to deal with temperatures getting too high.

With that said I would assume they have acclimated to the parameters in MY tank.

Any sources and research available to the public that can be shared would be much appreciated.

I am only going on what I have read in several pieces of literature and the copious fellow reefers and biologists I have had the opportunity to associate with. It is highly likely that this discrepancy is simply due to outdated info.

David.

[greenbean36191]

Most of what I mentioned can be found in these papers, though I'm not sure which of them are available for free online.

Coles, S. L. (1997). Reef Corals Occurring in a Highly Fluctuating Temperature Environment at Fahal Island, Gulf of Oman (Indian Ocean). Coral Reefs, 16, 269-272.

Craig, P., Birkeland, C. & Belliveau, S. (2001). High Temperatures Tolerated by a Diverse Assemblage of Shallow-water Corals in American Samoa. Coral Reefs, 20, 185-189.

Fitt, William K., Brown, Barbara E., Warner, Mark E. & Dunne, Richard P. (2001). Coral Bleaching: Interpretation of Thermal Tolerance Limits and Thermal Thresholds in Tropical Corals. Coral Reefs, 20, 51-65.

West, J.M & Salm, R.V. (2003). Resistance And Resilience To Coral Bleaching: Implications For Coral Reef Conservation And Management. Conservation Biology, 17(4), 956-967.

McClanahan, T.R. & Maina, J (2003). Response of Coral Assemblages to the Interaction between Natural Temperature Variation and Rare Warm-Water Events. Ecosystems, 6, 551-563.

Castillo, K.D. & Helmuth, B.S.T (2005). Influence of thermal history on the response of Montastraea annularisto short-term temperature exposure. Marine Biology, 148, 261-270.

Leichter, James J., Helmuth, Brian & Fischer, Andrew M. (2006). Variation beneath the surface: Quantifying complex thermal environments on coral reefs in the Caribbean, Bahamas and Florida. Journal of Marine Research, 64, 563-588.

McClanahan, Timothy R., Ateweberhan, Mebrahtu, Muhando, Christopher A., Maina, Joseph & Mohammed, Mohammed S. (2007). Effects of Climate and Seawater Temperature Variation on Coral Bleaching and Mortality. Ecological Monographs, 77(4), 503-525.

Smith, Lance W. (2008). Fluctuating Reef Environments Maintain Reef Resilience.: University of Hawai'i.

Karisa, Juliet F., Kaunda-Arara, Boaz & Obura, David (2008). Spatial and Temporal Variation in Coral Recruitment and Mortality in Coastal Kenya. Mombasa: CORDIO East Africa.

Middlebrook, Rachael, Hoegh-Guldberg, Ove & Leggat, William (2008). The effect of thermal history on the susceptibility of reef-building corals to thermal stress. The Journal of Experimental Biology, 211, 1050-1058.

Putnam, Hollie M., Edmunds, Peter J. & Tung-Yung Fan (2010). Effect of a fluctuating thermal regime on adult and larval reef corals. Invertebrate Biology, 129(3), 199-209.

[DVA]

That's excellent thank you. If I can snuff these out through my sources I will try and post/link them here for all, depending obviously on the appropriateness of said action.

At first glance of these titles this seems to be focusing on the current state and concern for some specific reefs. It will be interesting to read the findings and see if these are anomalies.

Thanks again. I'm digging in.

DVA