Heater gone crazy or new powerful lights?!?!

Leilani57

Carbon Free Girl
I have a 55 gallon saltwater standard 48 inch long, 21 inch high glass aquarium with live rock and fish. I have a 6 week old submersible heater -- the kind you pre set the temperature by turning a red dial on the top of the heater. i was moving a few things around in my tank today and noticed the water felt much hotter than usual. I put in my digital thermometer and sure enough, the water was around 81 degrees. I have my heater set to 76 degrees. I unplugged the heater, added some ice to my dry sump tank and now the digital says it's 79 degrees in there. My house is kept at 75 degrees.

The only thing that has changed is that yesterday I purchased a power compact 50/50 quad 96 watt light. I am upgrading from the two 28 watt power compact 50/50's I had b/c I have a new LTA anemone. Could the heat from the light have heated the water that much? The lights are housed in a canopy, and sit on top of my glass cover over the aquarium. Any thoughts?

Thanks for your help in advance,
Leilani
Life is short. Race hard.
http://leilanimunter.com
 
Those lights could definately heat the water to 81F no problem.

Ditch the glass top, raise the lighting to something like 6" or more above the water, and look into a Ranco dual stage temp controller.
 
yea ditch the glass. I went through the same thing. got rid of the glass and the temp dropped like 3*
 
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