Temperature

[ReefMe]

Ihave a 55 gallon tank in my garage. I have soft and hard corals, a few fish, snails, etc. The temp on my tank went down to 70 this am when I checked, a heater had gone out so this contributed to the low temp. It has been getting to around 10 degrees outside in the am here consistently, our pond is covered with 3" of ice! Everything in the tank looks good, some ricordia not open as much but not alarming - of course I am surprised at how well everything is doing and looks because all the books say no drastic temperature changes, certainly not 10 degrees as I usually keep it at 80, even though I have read down to 77 this time of year is ok, a change of 7 degrees seems drastic. Maybe these marine creatures are tougher to the vagaries of the natural environment than given credit. Of course it can be assumed that a prolonged temp change to this degree would be harmful, I am not doing that experiment, the heater was replaced as I keep backups of important items like that. Anyone else had a similar experience or something unusual happen with their tanks temperature?

[ThePremiumAquarium]

I have had tanks get down that low and during shipments the water in the fish and coral bags definately is at least that temp if not a bit lower. 70 is kind of rock bottom for many critters to survive. Some fish will start to go into convulsions and many sps will start so die off as well as some softies and sps if the temp goes below that mark for very long. During shipments they are only subject to those temps very temperarily but in our tanks during this time of year those temps can last days or even weeks if we don't watch closely. It sounds like you have it all covered. I hope everything stays happy and does well for you. It sucks when stuff like this happens.

[ReefMe]

Paradox

 

It was just a paradox to have read so many references on temp and see the opposite, i.e., way lower than normal and not detrimental to the marine life, just interesting to see it actually happen. I suppose shipping does do as you say for that period and they do mostly come out unharmed. Yup, I'm taking everything out of deep freeze as I type going toward the balmy Indo Pacific climes these guys like, thanks!(clap)