Thermal tango in your tank: Does the temperature fluctuate in your reef aquarium?

[i cant think]

My nano’s temp changes seasonally and remains stable most of the time at 23.5-24°C, in summer climbing up to 25.5-26°C. My 4’ however fluctuates every day.

 

[Armt350]

By the nature of my DIY thermometer controller, it fluctuates continually between 25.0 c to 26.0 c.

 

[Pntbll687]

Temp fluctuates both daily and seasonally

Daily, usually from 76 to 77 maybe 77.5

Seasonally, from 76 in the winter to 79-80 in the summer.

 

[Kyleovski]

Minimal, usually only 0.5 deg Celsius with a spike on water change days sometimes

 

[vanguard]

If you ignore the 3x a day spikes, which are really a false reading for feeding time, my temp moves less than a degree per day. It's pretty much always 77.x.

Having said that, I might switch heaters because one failed and I've lost confidence in aquael heaters.

 

[BradB]

My heaters are set to 78F year round. My house heater is usually set to 68F in the winter, and air conditioning at 75F in the day and 72F at night. In summer, the heaters rarely kick on and the tank can get as high as 83F when the lights go out. In the winter, the heaters are on almost constantly. I do think the seasonal and daily fluctuation is healthy, but it is mostly this way to save time and money. Another consideration with seasonal fluctuations is what happens if power goes out. On a 95F degree day, the tank is going to heat up quickly, and if the animals are acclimated to 83F, this is less of a problem. On a 0F degree winter day, the tank is going to cool quickly, and again it is better with everything already acclimated to 78F.

I've thought about some sort of heat exchange between my DIY LED lights and aquarium water, which should save a lot of money, especially in Winter. I haven't had time to do much with this yet.

 

[QuickrdenU]

yeah it fluctuates a tenth of a degree on average…

 

[tetonair]

Very interesting that this came up today. I just got the Sicce contactless heater to try their eco mode to see if that will hold a more even temp than the inkbird. If so I will set the inkbird as a backup shutoff if the temp gets too high.
I will post my findings in a couple days.

This image is a weeks worth of measurements. The inkbird kept the temp with in 1deg but you see how quickly it would oscillate. The Sicce is way more accurate it is only oscillating .5deg and it is way smoother.