Tank was running for months at 70-72 degrees

[fishyfishy]

I feel like an idiot. I’ve had my 130 gallon running for 8 or so months and just assumed my tank always ran hot… I couldn’t really pinpoint why, I’ve never had much of an issue with other tanks, and it has mainly dc pumps. I thought maybe it was the lights pumping in heat. A few months ago, I bought a window fan and set it over the tank for apex to control and cool it down.

It’s been working great. Apex kicks the fan on all the time and keeps the temp stable! Wonderful… until I got a little curious. It’s going into winter and my heaters are just never being called to run?

Well I got out a meat probe and stuck it in, and it read 70! Shoot, found another probe from a broken thermometer and it read 72… checked both in another freshwater tank that was running 77 degrees and they all were +|- 1 degree.

My apex was off by about 8 degrees… I was wondering why things weren’t growing very fast. I guess that’s my answer! All calibrated now, and will bring it up 2 degrees tonight and slowly ramp back up to 77 or 78 degrees. Hoping a few of my slow bleaching corals will show some color again and I’m sure the fish will appreciate it.

 

[Jikkermanccini]

Good catch!
I would personally raise the temp even slower, especially if you have bleaching corals in the tank as it may stress them out even more. I've run my tanks anywhere from 70-82 without issue, it's all about making the changes slowly.

 

[fishyfishy]

I hear ya on going slow… I’ll go 1 degree up. It’s just two corals that are not looking their best, everything else has kept its color, but I want to minimize any stress that may lead to RTN for sure.

 

[dustin]

Good reminder to make sure you have two heaters one in sump and one in display. I had a similar issue when I pulled my backup heater and didnt replace it. Its good to keep one of those temp set heaters with no dial and one with a dial you can adjust...