Temperature Ranges for On/Off of heaters questions

[rbarr110]

I am new to the reef tank world, and have questions about temperature regulation and the APEX.

I am shooting for 77-78 degrees maintained. However, the low/high defaults on the APEX are 76-82 (if memory serves me correct). I adjusted so that 76.5 is my low and 78.5 was my high. However, I read somewhere that you should try to keep the swing to 1 degree. That seems like a lot of on/off switching going on to try and maintain 1 degree of fluctuation?

Should I tighten up my values, is it ok to have a 2 degree swing as I have it set up now? Looking for opinions on temps, temp swings, and the use of the APEX to control it.

Thanks

[zombie]

You do not want that much swing. The range of 76 to 82 is the acceptable range that temp can be in a reef tank at any time. Heaters can change temp quickly unless you intentionally undersize them (how I do it), so you want a small variation for any given setpoint. You can change the setpoint dirunally or seasonally within the 76-82, but the hysteresis of the heater should not exceed 1 degree. I like a variation like this for a setpoint of 78.0 target.

If Temp < 77.9 Then ON
If Temp > 78.1 Then OFF

This results in a typical temp range of 77.8 to 78.2.


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