Close call, and a question

S

scooters reef

New member
I am supposed to be visiting my family a couple of hours away, but ran into an issue this morning.

Last night I thought the tank felt warm, and when I checked it was at 86. Although it hadn't pushed it that far before, I had turned my lights on early for a visitor and assumed it was from the lights. I turned them off and went to bed.

Before leaving this morning I went to see how much it cooled off during the night, but it had gone UP and was just over 90. It turned out the heater had been stuck "On". It has been tossed and another put in it's place. The tank has cooled back off to 85 so far.

Everything in the tank LOOKS fine, but I've never had it climb that far before. Is that high enough to possibly have die-off or other problems I'm not yet seeing? I was thinking of getting the temp down, setting the new heater, and then leaving for the weekend. However, I would hate to find out it caused other problems that could snowball on me while I'm gone. So, the question is "Should I stay, or should I go?"

And yes, I have an ACII and have just been sitting on my butt because I ran out of modules and haven't gotten around to picking more up to get the heaters on that instead of relying on just the heater's own internal setting :( THAT will now be done quickly.
 
Yes the tank should be fine. I'm in az and i've talked to quite a few people who either left a window open at night or something else, and the tank gets up to that easily...but everything was ok. Sometimes the fish and corals might die...sometimes they dont. If the stuff isnt dieing, then i'd say they handled it ok.

Throw a little clip fan above the tank pointing into the water...that will cool it down to 80 pretty easilly i'd think...does for me anyways.
 
Thanks! The only other over-heating issue I've had in the past was much more extreme, so I had nothing to compare it to. The only thing making me nervous is the skimmer is obviously working harder than usual. Would just the water temp alone possibly just make it skim more?

Oh, and tank is down to 83 and still slowly dropping, so the heat is gone anyway :)
 
lose the modules and hardwire in a DC8 or two into that ACII.

That is a serious mistake seeing how you have the equipment that can prevent this from happening (controller). You could have lost everything as I am sure you are aware. If you are keeping SPS there may be damage to them that could take a few weeks to show itself.

I run a heater and a fan just like sir_dudeguy connected to a ACJr. and my temp is a rock solid 80 degrees. The controller is a wonderful piece of equipment.
 
CeeGee, you are correct, and the point well taken.

However, lucky me, the tank is not hardly stocked at all. I am in the midst of a basement finishing project. The tank was originally going to wait until everything else was done. The wife demanded I get it running, so we got started. I still have quite a lot of equipment already purchased and not yet even installed, as well as some gaps (like the heater with no control or safety backups). So, I now have the most lightly stocked 200 in existance. The tank has now been running about two years, with some of it transfered from a 55 that was running an additional two, yet just went from three fish to four just last week. As for coral, there is very little there. I have a lemonpeel, flame, ocellaris, and the recently added royal gramma for fish. A sebae and an RBTA, and not much else. Oh, unless you want my urchin that has to go :)

It's a die-off that could threaten my fish that had me concerned right now. Otherwise, you are correct, and all that will be in place before we get serious on stocking this. Otherwise, I have a very mature and almost empty system in the meantime. But, I still feel like a fool for not at least completing setting up what I already have on hand. But, is an extreme for using patience in stocking anyway :) The basement is almost done now, so need to finish this all up.

As for the DC, I was planning to use thouse if the X-10 had problems with my MH ballasts, but never thought of them for heaters or anything else. If I used a DC, or multiple ones, don;t they all need to be daisy chained and then all end up on the same electrical circuit? I can't overload one of my circuits just to get it all on a DC.
 
wait...you said something about a safety backup for a heater? whats that? i'm interested...:)

but ya mine stays a rock solid 80 also, and thats in arizona and room temp is like, 82 at the lowest.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8064623#post8064623 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sir_dudeguy
wait...you said something about a safety backup for a heater? whats that? i'm interested...:)

but ya mine stays a rock solid 80 also, and thats in arizona and room temp is like, 82 at the lowest.
Click to expand...

Was referring mostly to the fact that HAD it been on the controller, the heater itself getting stuck ON would not have mattered, because the controller would have turned it off. But, I also planned a second heater with the controller turning it on at a slightly lower temp, so if the primary fails "off" it wont drop too far before the next comes on.
 
so whats this controller? i've heard of people talkin about them but i've never actually seen one...do you just plug a heater power chord into it or what? (and then plug the controller into the wall, almost like a power strip thing?) or ami way off? lol
 
I have an Aqua Controller II. Is basically all X-10 based. Temp sensor updates the current temp and an X-10 signal is sent to turn the heater on or off. The DC mentioned about is "Direct Connect" and helps resolve frequent issues with x-10 signals never making it to the device, or interference between devices. I haven't had a problem with that YET though.

Otherwise, is really no different than any home automation system based on X-10. I could set the controller to send an X-10 signal to turn on device "a-10" if the temp exceeds 87. I could have a lamp in an x-10 module in the bedroom with the "a-10" address. So, if I see the lamp on I know the tank is over 87. That was simplified, but is a lot you can do with it, except x-10 isn't always reliable and the reason CeeGee mentioned the Direct Connect.
 
Oh, it does more than temp though :) Has probes for Ph and Orp as well. Also has a dry contact sensor (again, I'm not done with it yet) I will be using with a humidistat and thermometer to control an exhaust fan if the room temp or humidy goes too high. Timers can be programmed for just about anything. But, ya still have to deal with x-10 being flaky. If the controller and all modules are on the same phase it helps though, and I made sure all circuits to the fish room were on the same phase so I could rely on it a little more.

And then didn't set up the one thing that was actually on the top of my list to be controlled :(
 
Scooter I wasn't scolding at all. The internet comes across like that sometimes. I was just trying to let you know that you need to get that controller going. As far as I know the DC8's or 4's or whatever don't have to be on the same circuit. They plug or "daisy chain" into each other using a phone cord and the "commands" are sent through that connection. If you are going X10 they all have to be on the same circuit. X10 isn't the way to go in my opinion.
 
X-10 should be on the same phase, but shouldn't have to be on the same circuit. A bridge could also be installed between phases, but I didn't want to mess with that.

LOL, also, I didn't mean to say you were scolding me in a bad way :) I was trying to be funny while responding to your own post that pointed out the obvious ! Even with the time it has been running without really stocking it (that has advantages) is still just DUMB to not at least finish setting up and configuring what's already on hand. I got too occupied with working on the basement and put it off, and now had a scare. I'm just happy it was only a scare :) Even the skimmer has calmed back down now.
 
I had a tank go down to 64 for a weekend. I lost nothing. Heat went off after leaving on a friday and I didn't get home until late sunday.
 
from what I understand temp going lower isn't so bad going the other direction is a different story.
 
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