Temp drop! What to do??

[StephDaReefer]

So I had an emergency. My sister got sick yesterday and asked me to take her to the hospital which caused me to neglect the tank for a day. And I finally got home this morning. Well I guess the water evaporated fairly quickly during the day. Causing the heater to be a bit more than half way out of the water in the return pump chamber of my fluval 13.5. Temp was at 72.9, I’m in a huge rush to work didn’t have a time to check the water params but my salinity wasn’t too bad. It was 1.027. I topped of the tank and brought it back down to 1.024. My question is how do I go about the temperature, is it bad for it to go up too fast? The heater is submerged and doing its job again. I have another small heater I use to heat up the water containers for water changes. Should I add that one into the mix too to get the temp up to normal (78 degrees) faster? Or would that be a bad thing?? I currently have 2 clowns and some LPS and softies. 

 

btw I know I should buy an ATO but I’m a full time college student with a part time job that barely covers this semesters books, once I recover from my school expenses that will be the first thing I will buy. 

[dandelion]

I would just let your heater do it’s job. Raising it too fast is not a good thing either. Make sure it does turn on though. Sometimes exposed heater may burn out.

 

My heater is in the back chamber and there has been a few times when I forgot to turn the return pump back on after doing maintenance. Temp will have dropped from 78 to 70 when I noticed it the next morning. Never had any problems. 

 

You can always consider DIY’ing an ATO. Doesn’t cost that much especially if you order parts on eBay directly from China.

[StephDaReefer]

17 minutes ago, dandelion said:

I would just let your heater do it’s job. Raising it too fast is not a good thing either. Make sure it does turn on though. Sometimes exposed heater may burn out.

 

My heater is in the back chamber and there has been a few times when I forgot to turn the return pump back on after doing maintenance. Temp will have dropped from 78 to 70 when I noticed it the next morning. Never had any problems. 

This gives me hope, thank you! I’m here at work freaking out. Hope my corals and fish are doing ok. 

[Asureef]

You should be fine. I had my temp drop to 72f from normal 77-78f.  I did a water change and forgot to turn back on the heaters.  

[xthunt]

I either overestimated my UPC runtime, or the house got too cold when the power went out overnight. Woke up and the tank was about 70. It warmed back up and nothing knew any different. 

[Oldsalt01]

Being on a strict budget myself has prevented me from buying a REAL ATO. I got around that by going to Petco and buying a 4oz Hampster water bottle. I hang it in the 3rd chamber of my 14g BC and fill it once a day. I twisted off the steel nipple and replaced that with a very short piece of vinyl tubing and make sure it's at my water level. It works just fine and keeps the salinity right where I want lt. Cost: $4.95.

[StephDaReefer]

36 minutes ago, Oldsalt01 said:

Being on a strict budget myself has prevented me from buying a REAL ATO. I got around that by going to Petco and buying a 4oz Hampster water bottle. I hang it in the 3rd chamber of my 14g BC and fill it once a day. I twisted off the steel nipple and replaced that with a very short piece of vinyl tubing and make sure it's at my water level. It works just fine and keeps the salinity right where I want lt. Cost: $4.95.

That’s an awesome idea! I’m defintely going to try that if not today then tomorrow. You should definitely make a YouTube video or something like that if possible to help out budget reefers such as myself in the future. 

[StephDaReefer]

Update: Came home, everything is looking pretty good, temp is right where I want it now. I wanna thank everyone for easing my nerves while at work. This is why I love this community, always helping each other. I’m one happy rookie reefer.

[Nocturnal]

Low temps aren't nearly as bad as high temps. If you have ever been snorkeling it's very common to get hit with random blasts of cold water. 

[Clown79]

The heater should not be in the return chamber unless you have an ato.

 

From what I have read online, they shouldn't be near return line hoses at all. 

 

Heaters exposed to air not only causes them to not work properly but can be dangerous as well...glass shattering.

[Oldsalt01]

21 hours ago, StephDaReefer said:

That’s an awesome idea! I’m defintely going to try that if not today then tomorrow. You should definitely make a YouTube video or something like that if possible to help out budget reefers such as myself in the future. 

I wish I could take credit for the idea, but I learned it while reading various posts on a couple of reef forums. I was skeptical but sure enough, it works. It keeps the salinity levels fairly consistent as long as I remember to refill the bottle daily. When the AC is on I have to refill 2x/day because my evap rates went up when I dumped the hood on the BC and covered it with eggcrate to prevent carpet surfers. I posted pics of the device a couple of months ago, somewhere on this forum. Check out my threads and you'll probably find it.

[Clown79]

2 minutes ago, Oldsalt01 said:

I wish I could take credit for the idea, but I learned it while reading various posts on a couple of reef forums. I was skeptical but sure enough, it works. It keeps the salinity levels fairly consistent as long as I remember to refill the bottle daily. When the AC is on I have to refill 2x/day because my evap rates went up when I dumped the hood on the BC and covered it with eggcrate to prevent carpet surfers. I posted pics of the device a couple of months ago, somewhere on this forum. Check out my threads and you'll probably find it.

They're great. I have one made out of a water bottle.

 

The only down side is that so far you can use a large container for the same purpose to avoid daily filling.