Well...my large reef has been going downhill for several weeks now. I have spent countless hours trying to ID the issue but could never figure it out...until today.
It started with my xenia dying off, followed by most of my
SPS, one clam, a BTA, a LTA, several acan colonies and some sun corals. Most of my
LPS, my mushrooms, zoas, duncan, one acan and a clam are still doing fine. All fish and most mobile inverts are fine. All water chemistry has been fine. I increased water changes and even bought all new
CF and
MH lamps. Still...things continued to deteriorate.
The only thing out of the ordinary was my temp. It seemed to Hoover around 72-74. I have two 300watt heaters in my sump and kept turning them up with no increase on my Coralife digital thermometer. Being I live in MN and my tank is topless and in our basement (which is only around 65 unless the fireplace is on) I chalked it up to that.
Today, while doing routine maintenance, I noticed my nano (also kept in the basement at degrees) felt much cooler then my 95gal. I changed the batteries in my digital thermo and it still read 73. So I took the thermometer out of nano and placed it in my large reef...the temp read 88! Makes me wonder just how long I have been cooking my tank.
So I guess the moral of the story is to run out and invest in a second thermometer so you can use two to verify one another. The $20 purchase could save you hundreds and hundreds of dollars in coral and a ton of heartache. One of the nice things about this hobby is that you can learn from the misfortunes of others instead of experiencing it first hand...
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