water temp/fish loss opinions

I bought a new digital thermometer a few weeks ago and it said it was 84 in my tank(I thought it "felt" closer to 80, woops). All my corals and fish were happy, but the temp never fluctuated. The fluctuation might have been your mother in laws problem. Now that I've got the coralife digital thermometer instead of the crappy pinpoint wireless thermometer with two sensors(it would say my tank was 89 degrees), I slowly brought it down to around 81.

Do you have any aqua controller or anything that you could monitor the hour to hour fluctuations of the temps? If you're not getting over there too often there's a chance it could be fluctuating more than you notice...

 

I agree, 85 isn't really that high......some parts of the ocean near the inland may get as high as 86 degrees. I doubt the temp got that high very quickly either, I'm sure it must have been gradual. I would guess it was something else, but hard to say what exactly.

 

They may have died due to a lack of oxygen, as water temps rise the ability to support oxygenation becomes harder. The fish's metabolism speeds up so does its demand for oxygen. The ocean has a very high oxygen content compared to a captive reef or a fish only tank!
Just a thought.

 

No joke I once had a heater malfunction and my temp overnight went from 79 to 89..... I did not loose anything but I did notice that ALL fish where at the bottom 1"of my tank and not swimming,pretty much just hovering... I slowly brought down the temp (replaced the bunk heater) and ended up with no dead fish but did have ick as a result from the stress.. I also would agree with B_Rad assumption that totally makes sense

 

I have pretty huge temp swings every now and then in my nano. Just the other day it was 86 and the clowns are doing fine. I think fish are far more resilient than corals in temp swing situations.

 

I've had mine jump to 85 before when I was out of town for a couple days. I didn't lose anything but caulerpa. I agree with the available oxygen and consumption comment....but, if that's true, then it seems that the oxygen levels must have been pretty marginal to begin-with if she lost that much that fast.

 

I agree that the temps aren't that far out of line.

With the overheating pump - have you ruled out stray voltage?

-Eric

 

I always thought you could use a digital voltmeter, ground 1 probe to the wall/outlet and stick the other in the tank - never actually tried it!
If the pump was switched there "shouldn't" be any voltage but it's possible there was an issue with the old pump.
You could always throw it in a bucket of water and test it...if it is bad it could be used for demonstrating how to test for stray voltage/current @ club events.
-Eric