Temperature Shock

[FeatherDuster]

My heater broke so my temperature went up to 88 while I was gone. It was probably that way for about 8 hours (I was gone all day). I am pretty much in shock right now. My crabs, clown and dusters appear to be okay, but I am not sure what to do at this point. I bought a new heater and I will place it in the once temperature finishes going down to about 80. I noticed all my sea stars appear to be coming out. I am not sure if thats a side effect of the temperature rise.

What should I do at this point to try to reduce shock and prepare for any problems I might start to see?

[NapoliNewJersey]

If you have some RO water, you can mix a batch of SW .. maybe 5 gallons or so. Not sure how big your tank is, but if you do a 10% water change with 75 degree water... it should bring it down a couple of degrees or so and tomorrow the temp will come down slow.

Same thing happened to me, not quit that high, mine went up to 84-85 and I did a 10-15% change at night and the next morning it was at 82 and I keep my tank now at about 79-80. Hope this helped.

[FeatherDuster]

If you have some RO water, you can mix a batch of SW .. maybe 5 gallons or so. Not sure how big your tank is, but if you do a 10% water change with 75 degree water... it should bring it down a couple of degrees or so and tomorrow the temp will come down slow.

Same thing happened to me, not quit that high, mine went up to 84-85 and I did a 10-15% change at night and the next morning it was at 82 and I keep my tank now at about 79-80. Hope this helped.

I did a 20% but it only went down about 2 degrees. So its 86 now. Everything appears to be doing fine, but knowing my luck everything will start getting sick tomorrow once things cool down.

Thanks for the advice. Did all your tankmates survive?

[Germanman]

float bags of ice its what i do in super hot days! good luck

[FeatherDuster]

float bags of ice its what i do in super hot days! good luck

Ooo thats a good idea. I will whip some up now. Do you think the creatures in my tank will survive this temperature shock? Hopefully it wasn't too stressful for them.

[Germanman]

my reef went to 86 yesterday..and my 20 gallon to 89 .im sure urs will be fine if mine were...dont worry got it down and am waiting for pay check to order chiller.

[FeatherDuster]

my reef went to 86 yesterday..and my 20 gallon to 89 .im sure urs will be fine if mine were...dont worry got it down and am waiting for pay check to order chiller.

Thats great to hear. Hopefully they will all survive. This is the first time my temperature has changed more than 2 degrees. I will consider the chiller for the future (since it does get hot here), but hopefully the ice packs and fan will work for now. My cat will miss the fan, but he can cool down by not being lazy and move towards the kitchen.

[Riverserver]

Just curious, what brand / model heater was it?

[NapoliNewJersey]

I did a 20% but it only went down about 2 degrees. So its 86 now. Everything appears to be doing fine, but knowing my luck everything will start getting sick tomorrow once things cool down.

Thanks for the advice. Did all your tankmates survive?

Yes everything survived. At the time I only had hermits/snails/emrald crabs though.

I hope everything turned out well.

[pseudoblond]

Just curious - why do your tanks get so hot? Do you guys not run a/c in the house so the room temp just goes up or what?

[FeatherDuster]

Just curious - why do your tanks get so hot? Do you guys not run a/c in the house so the room temp just goes up or what?

My house only has AC in the living room. It would too expensive to try to install it everywhere. Most of the houses where I live are about 30-50 years old so they don't have many upgrades. Only about 1 out of every 10 people I know have an AC.

And temperature increase can be caused by many things:
Faulty Heater
Intense Lighting
Hot Days
and a couple of other factors that I might be forgetting.

[FeatherDuster]

Just curious, what brand / model heater was it?

I trashed it, but it was an adjustable water friendly heater. One of those that you get at petco.

[Catpicklesdog]

Even here in the Uk I've been having problems and I don't know of any houses with A/C round here - only businesses. I've had problems since I moved house, in my last house the tank was on external wall, in this house it's on an ajoining wall and I've had cavity insulation done. Last year when I fisrst encountered problems I floated ice bags for an immediate remedy and now I have a floor fan stood at the end of the tank and I switch on as and when required. When I upgrade to halides I'll install some fans on the tank.

[Germanman]

Just curious - why do your tanks get so hot? Do you guys not run a/c in the house so the room temp just goes up or what? i dont have any ac at all.

[Pallen81]

ah, I hope all your animals survive featherduster. its wild when temps jump like that.

my tank also went from 76 degrees to 82 yesterday in a matter of 8 hours. we had temperatures outside of about 85 degrees. its crazy how hot my apartment gets at night from a warm day.

i only run my A/c if it's hotter then 90 and humid and I can't sleep at night.

I think i might prepare a few bags of ice just in case I need an immediate cool down in the future!

[FeatherDuster]

Thanks for all the support guys. I checked the tank this morning and everything appears okay. Its now at a normal 79-80C. Hopefully when I get home later today it will still be fine. I took protective measures and prepared some ice bags, faced my fan directly towards the tank and reduced the lighting hours.

I think my Clown is mad at me though (due to the water change and ice bags). He has been glaring at me from his favorite corner. He also decided to freak me out and play dead again last night. I remember having several small heart attacks during the first week I got him. Its just my luck to get a fish that likes to sleep on its side nuzzled toward the sand.

[noskimmer]

Good to hear all is well. Just did the conversion.. that is like 31 c. The inhabitants can take extreme variance like this for short periods, the main issue with temp going up is your inhabitants slowly suffocate, and this is where aeration and water turnover comes into play.

I use a remote commercial thermostat, like those on commercial freezers\refrigerators, I just set it to work in reverse, and because it can drive up to 1500 watts, I just use it to control lots of little heaters rather than one big one. So if one fails (off), no probs, if one fails (on) it has little effect. The other cool thing is you can set two types of high and low alarms, one a display warning, the other an audible warning, and it will keep these points stored in memory until you clear the alarm situation.

[salty420]

my tanks been up at 86 today, haven't starting running the a/c here yet. No one seems to be adversly affected at all - but I only have a couple fish in there with my inverts...