Temperature Range for an NPS Tank?

Northwest_Scapes_

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So I'm finally getting ready to setup a full NPS Reef after keeping Sun Corals and different Gorgonians in Mixed Reefs, however the one thing I can't find an answer on is Temperature. I've heard some answers from the high 60's to low 70s such as 72F - 74F or 68F - 72F

Does anyone have answers to this and what have your experiences been with NPS at these temperatures?
 

ISpeakForTheSeas

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Are you planning on keeping coldwater NPS species, or are you planning on keeping tropical species?

Or perhaps a better question would be, are there any specific species you want to keep? (If so, what are their scientific/taxonomic names?)
 
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Northwest_Scapes_

Northwest_Scapes_

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Are you planning on keeping coldwater NPS species, or are you planning on keeping tropical species?

Or perhaps a better question would be, are there any specific species you want to keep? (If so, what are their scientific/taxonomic names?)
All tropical / subtropical.

Specific species would probably be Tubastrea, Dendros, Phyllangia americana since the tank is rather shallow I'm pretty sure most Gorgs and Sea Fans won't fit, although I am looking at Red Sea Fan (No ID but most likely Gorgonia sp.), Menella sp. , and Blueberry Gorg
 

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So, I'm definitely not an expert (and hopefully someone who has kept these before will chime in for you here), but looking at the research I can find on those species, I'd guess as long you keep the temp between roughly 68-79F, you'll be probably be fine. Not a ton of research has been done that I can find on these guys, but it seems most of these are likely pretty relaxed as far as temperature goes (Tubastraea spp. specifically are noted for being particularly resilient to temps; it seems they can do fine with temps between ~54-83F - most corals start having issues above 83F). Some people say that you'll want to keep the temps super low because some of these are supposedly "deep water" species, but I couldn't find an indication that they would be deep enough to go colder than 66-68F (and, to be honest, there would be almost no reason for a diver to collect these from deep enough to go colder than that, as these aren't typically high value items to sell).

Personally, I'd say to decide based on three things:

First, cost (if you can run it at room temp and save yourself some cash, why not run it at room temp?).

Second, to better mimic whatever environment you're trying to recreate (i.e. do you want to recreate a deeper water environment? If so, run it colder, like 68-72F. If you want to recreate a closer to the surface environment, maybe 72-74F. Again, hopefully someone with experience will chime in, but, from what I can find, you could literally run these guys at shallow-water reef temps and they'd probably be fine; so if you want to run the temp at 78, give it a try).

Third, what temp do you think (based on the info you can find) they would grow the best at? For this one, I would personally say to just set the tank at 71F, maybe let it wander a degree or three (i.e. from ~68-74F) and call it good, but that's just me. Somewhere around that range is likely the ideal temp for at least a couple of these species to grow, but I can't say for sure.

Hope this helps (and hopefully someone else can offer their two cents as well).
 
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Northwest_Scapes_

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So, I'm definitely not an expert (and hopefully someone who has kept these before will chime in for you here), but looking at the research I can find on those species, I'd guess as long you keep the temp between roughly 68-79F, you'll be probably be fine. Not a ton of research has been done that I can find on these guys, but it seems most of these are likely pretty relaxed as far as temperature goes (Tubastraea spp. specifically are noted for being particularly resilient to temps; it seems they can do fine with temps between ~54-83F - most corals start having issues above 83F). Some people say that you'll want to keep the temps super low because some of these are supposedly "deep water" species, but I couldn't find an indication that they would be deep enough to go colder than 66-68F (and, to be honest, there would be almost no reason for a diver to collect these from deep enough to go colder than that, as these aren't typically high value items to sell).

Personally, I'd say to decide based on three things:

First, cost (if you can run it at room temp and save yourself some cash, why not run it at room temp?).

Second, to better mimic whatever environment you're trying to recreate (i.e. do you want to recreate a deeper water environment? If so, run it colder, like 68-72F. If you want to recreate a closer to the surface environment, maybe 72-74F. Again, hopefully someone with experience will chime in, but, from what I can find, you could literally run these guys at shallow-water reef temps and they'd probably be fine; so if you want to run the temp at 78, give it a try).

Third, what temp do you think (based on the info you can find) they would grow the best at? For this one, I would personally say to just set the tank at 71F, maybe let it wander a degree or three (i.e. from ~68-74F) and call it good, but that's just me. Somewhere around that range is likely the ideal temp for at least a couple of these species to grow, but I can't say for sure.

Hope this helps (and hopefully someone else can offer their two cents as well).
Thank you, this definitely helps. My room temp is constantly at 69F-70F so I think might be fine for the most part, although I was thinking of just adding a small heater for stability especially since Winter is coming up
 
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