Water Temps

[marineduud]

I thought I would start this new thread to move the temp issues from another reefers thread which had nothing to do with TEMP. So lets let it roll here. I've been looking at some of the data from the link that was posted and have allot of dought about the info read so far so I would like to know what everyone thinks and I put this out in the open so all others from all of TRT to chime in. Here is the link to what confuses me about the temps of the Fl. coast, how could the temp be so differant north and south of such a small area ??

http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/cwtg/satl.html

Fernandina Beach FL	57.7	55	55	62	68	72	75	78	81	81	83	84	84	84	83	81	76	72	66	58
St Augustine Beach FL	57.7	57	56	61	68	71	74	77	80	81	83	84	83	83	83	82	78	72	67	60
Daytona Beach FL	73.2	61	59	65	70	73	75	78	79	80	80	80	80	81	83	82	79	76	71	65
Stuart Beach FL		67	66	70	71	74	75	78	79	79	79	79	80	80	81	80	79	77	75	70
Miami Beach FL		71	73	75	78	78	80	81	84	85	86	86	86	84	84	83	83	79	76	73

Then the Keys
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/cwtg/egof.html

Location	Recent Temperatures	JAN	FEB	MAR	APR	MAY	JUN	JUL	AUG	SEP	OCT	NOV	DEC
Key West FL	72.1	69	70	75	78	82	85	87	87	86	82	76	72

(Quote)— Use the near real time water temperature data with discretion, because they have NOT been quality control processed and may contain errors.


You think that waters of Miami would be cooler than the Keys right ? Or do you drop your temp in the winter to go along with weather out side ?

What do you guys think ???

[Jadinop]

I think the main question to ask would be, do corals actually benefit from the cooler temperatures during the winter or do they just survive it?

[MikeAtJax]

My understanding is the flow goes from Key West past the Upper Keys to Miami. Thus the water gets warmer as it travels north.

[mkvd_kgb]

the reason i say that they benefit from a lower temp in a winter season is because it simulates a truely natural environment. yes, you can keep your tanks at a stagnate 75-82 degrees year round, and yes your corals will grow, but this is only simulating one season, summer. this allows your corals to reproduce, but only asexually. to allow them to sexually reproduce, a period of lower temps and shorter photoreceptivity is needed, along with other factors such as moon cycles, but the lower temps allow your tank to experience spring, summer, fall, and winter. my whole take on this hobby is two fold:1. to enjoy the beauty of the animals that i care for, and 2. to closely as possible replicate the natural environment. in replicating a natural environment, your tank should never be at a consistent temp year round, its like forcing a tree to consistently grow by keeping it in a greenhouse with summer conditions. it is, in my opinion, inhumane to do such a thing and not allow these animals that we care for to experience as closely a natural environment that we can provide.

[dacro]

Nice theory, kgb... We try to emulate the light cycle with the seasons, but it would be tough for me to force the temperature.

As previously mentioned, most of our stoney corals survive in a warmer environment...

Love to see some tank pics when you get a chance!

[chiapet]

Now it seems we are talking about a potential temperature randomizer. Even during specific seasons, the temps are always in flux. During the winter... a warm spell or the opposite. That would be the way to attempt to reproduce nature.

[OneDummHikk]

Originally Posted by mkvd_kgb

the reason i say that they benefit from a lower temp in a winter season is because it simulates a truely natural environment.

If, and only if, they are natural-captured specimens. If they are tank raised specimens then the "natural environment" for them is a constant temperature year round.

But, since you mentioned simulating a natural environment, do you also simulate the natural environment of sunrise/sunset and the tidal changes? Neither of them is the same from day to day. It is something I have been thinking about a lot recently was simulating sunrise/sunset (I have some ideas on how to do it) and then simulating the tidal changes using powerheads on both ends of the tank and a computerized system of controlling the PH's where they come on at the right times to simulate tides. Was wondering if you do that already.

[MikeAtJax]

kgb, I could not disagree with your insite more. Plants have to deal with different environments then corals. Most of the corals in our tanks come from environments that have a stable temp and the light cycle changes very little. Show me one tank of the month that allows it's temp to drop to 75 degrees. It does not happen. Coral reefs get in trouble when there are changes and this is well documented. So IMO it is inhumane not to give our corals a stable environment.

[mkvd_kgb]

i also am in the process of trying to do so. as far sunrise/sunset, my lights come on one at a time, my 65w dual actinic frist, 30min later the other 65w 50/50 pc, then my 175w mh 10k comes on at 1000 and ends around 1500, the pc then go off in the opposite with a 30 min interval. as far as changing from day to day, i am still trying to devcise a way of doing so, prolly gonna end up needing to control witha comp set with each day sunrise/sunset....this way to eliminate the manual need of doing so.. automatition, though helpfull, is hard to coordinate effectively.

Quote:"If, and only if, they are natural-captured specimens. If they are tank raised specimens then the "natural environment" for them is a constant temperature year round."

that may be the only environment that the specimen has ever known, but it still isnt an actually natural environment. thats like saying a dolphin born in SeaWorld is in its natural environment because it swims in a tank, but done correctly, that dolphin can be reared and successfully released into its truely natural environment (not saying aquarists should ever release their animals into the wild). but if we can atleast attempt in reproducing nature, is it not the better way??

[Jadinop]

This discussion keeps coming around to reproduction and I'm not sure why you would want that to happen in your tank. A quick forum search on some of the other sites will tell you that most people that experience spawning events (usually from clams) in home aquariums suffer near tank crashes. Our systems are simply not setup to support the amount of biological material released during these events. Top that off with the fact that most corals have a free swimming pelagic period before settling down to grow. In other words, you will probably lose all of the offspring unless you can provide some kind of planktonic soup for them to mature in. Spawning corals is simply not necessary for aquaculturing. Fragmentation is a simple and economical way that has been proven to work.

[MikeAtJax]

No, kmvb is saying that a tank that is not stable is best.

[MikeAtJax]

Robert likes to start an argument.

[OneDummHikk]

Originally Posted by mkvd_kgb

i also am in the process of trying to do so. as far sunrise/sunset, my lights come on one at a time, my 65w dual actinic frist, 30min later the other 65w 50/50 pc, then my 175w mh 10k comes on at 1000 and ends around 1500, the pc then go off in the opposite with a 30 min interval. as far as changing from day to day, i am still trying to devcise a way of doing so, prolly gonna end up needing to control witha comp set with each day sunrise/sunset....this way to eliminate the manual need of doing so.. automatition, though helpfull, is hard to coordinate effectively.

I have been thinking about the sunrise/sunset effect for about 10 years now. Started with the idea on a FW tropical tank and the idea has always been in the back of my head. Now, you have me thinking about it again. One of the issues is the timing and the light itself. Lets say (for this discussion) that the light level 30 minutes before dawn is 1K and the light level at high noon is 20K (again, those numbers aren't right but are for discussion purposes). The only time the light level is at 20K is at 12 noon. Any other time of day, on a natural reef, the light level is lower than that. Also, twice a day you would get a reading between 1K and 20K. Pick a number, it will happen twice (except 20K). Once pre-noon and once post-noon. The time that the light will actually be shining straight down on the reef is very limited. Yet, in an aquarium the light is shining straight down for however long your lights are on. You also aren't duplicating the gradual rise from 1K to 20K, it is stepped.

Two ways I have thought of to simulate the gradual increase and decrease of light intensity. Both ways have a light system where the lights are turned vertical to the tank so that instead of long ways they are short way over the tank.

One way you have a solid bank of lights that are three times as wide as the tank is long. So on a 55 or a 90 (4 feet long), your light bank would be 12 feet long and you would start on one side and turn a light on every so many minutes and at high noon you start turning them off. It would take some adjusting to get the lights turning on/off at the right time.

The other way is to have a moving light setup that moved from one side to the other to simulate the way the sun actually moves over a natural reef.

Either one could be tweaked weekly, bi-weekly, monthly to account for the changing seasons and the length of the day.

Whether it has ever been tried, whether it would work or not I do not know. It could be an ingenious idea or it could be the dumbest idea I have come up with to date. As for automation, a webserver setup with a feed from a reliable sunrise/sunset source would alleviate the need to do it manually.

As for the tides, I have thought about that one also. I see a lot about the tidal controllers but they alternate a lot faster then the earth tides do. If you had powerheads in each end of the tank that pointed straight across the tank. You would also need dual corner overflows that would probably need to be front-to-back as well with dual returns. You have the pumps/PH's on timers that alternate every 3 hours to simulate the tidal surges in the ocean. You pump in one end, drain out the other, and have the PH'es pumping in the same direction. Then you reverse them to reverse the tides. You would then need a way to raise and lower the water level in the tank to simulate the difference in depth the tide causes on a natural reef and the water pressure difference.

And now, you have spent 10 grand or so on a 90 gallon tank to try to simulate a natural environment

My problem isn't that I haven't thought it out, my problem is I have thought about it too much.

Originally Posted by mkvd_kgb

Quote:"If, and only if, they are natural-captured specimens. If they are tank raised specimens then the "natural environment" for them is a constant temperature year round."

that may be the only environment that the specimen has ever known, but it still isnt an actually natural environment. thats like saying a dolphin born in SeaWorld is in its natural environment because it swims in a tank, but done correctly, that dolphin can be reared and successfully released into its truely natural environment (not saying aquarists should ever release their animals into the wild). but if we can atleast attempt in reproducing nature, is it not the better way??

I agree with most of that. I don't believe that you can create a truly "natural environment" in a tank. You can come close, but not truly as there is nothing "natural" about a saltwater animal being in a glass/acrylic box I am also not so sure you can create a natural feeding environment in a reasonably sized home aquarium. Spot-feeding corals, feeding fish flakes and/or pellets, nothing "natural" about it.

Told ya, I think too much sometimes

[mkvd_kgb]

hey, i understand what your saying, onedummhikk....as far as the light set up that gradually moves across the tank, i believe i have seen it before over at AtlantisAquariums when they were in the wharehouse near the bank...as with that set up, i believe you would still have to somewhat step the lights coming on and off to an extent, unless the lights ran about 2-3 feet longer on each side of the tank, this way to simulate dawn and dusk. as far as the reliable sunrise/sunset source, i know the us armed forcres uses a quite reliable one, and you should be able to find out the times for a specific area in the world, i.e. Fiji or Indonesia.... the tides are yet, as you said, another issue, due to the fact of a differing water depth between low and high tide, you would need a tank quite a bit higher than usual, with overflow capabilities for the highest height for both low and high tide, with the ability to close the overflow for the low tide overflow.... basically my idea is a sliding bar that goes up and down, adjusting the depth in the tank....the tidal controllers are another issue ofcourse, though i think some can accomidate up to 3hr intervals, not 100% sure, but most i think work on 30min intervals...and no there never will be anything 100% natural about an aquarium, ever....but my whole thought on it is to atleast try to recreate it as closely as possible with the resources available to you.....and i understand that there are sooooo many tanks out there that are successfull in keeping the temp at a constant 79 or 81, but in essence, isn't this reef keeping hobby still quite new? suceesfully keeping corals were in the late 80s early 90s i believe, correct me if im wrong now, but 15-20yrs max is still not a long time in retrospect.....even looking for reef tanks over 10+ years still existing now is not an easy search....all im saying is that what works today, may work for 2yrs, for 6yrs, but might not in 7 or 10 or 20yrs... hopefully by then, ofcourse, we will have much more advanced equipment to allow us to prolong our little microcosms....but for now, we each, in our own opinions, provide for our tanks the best we can....and now i am finished with trying to defend my viewpoint...i wish you all success in your tanks ^_^

[MikeAtJax]

This year marks my 32nd year in the hobby and it is a hobby. I also do not have the best tank in town by any means. But over the years I have seen a lot of tanks and different methods. I have seen tanks that use your temp theory in pratice. It is called not having chiller/fans in the summer and heaters winter. I have seen the results and that is why I can say your temp theory is wrong.

"i say that they benefit from a lower temp in a winter season is because it simulates a truely natural environment". Where did that come from. This is just your opinion kvg and you should have stated so.

Get a controller and you can do your light plans with little hassel.