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Temperature control is extremely important to a successful reef. The debates about the optimal temperature rage on, but nearly everyone agrees that temperature stability is a must. I keep my reef at 79°F.
I also installed a separate thermostat that controls a relay for the metal halide lights. This is for safety; if the AC unit fails while I am away, the MH lights will shut off when the room temperature exceeds 80°F. It is worth noting that if you install an air conditioner that will run during cold times of the year, you need a special variable-speed fan on the outside compressor. This is true because when it is really cold outside, blowing the fan full speed will make the air conditioning unit TOO cold, (since the outside unit will cool so much from the cold outside air) which will cause ice to form on the unit inside from the condensation and it will block off the air flow. Once we installed the variable-speed, thermostat-controlled fan on the outside compressor, it worked great, even in the winter. It would be nice if I could just leave the window open in the winter to save electric costs; but the rain/snow getting on the windowsill will eventually damage the wood, plus when the wind blows in just right it forces the aquarium-smell from the equipment room into the house, which makes the boss mad! Heating is a simple matter - I use two 250 watt Ebo-Jager submersible heaters in the sump, which are of course connected to the same temperature controller.
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I use a Universal
Marine temperature controller. I got this like 10 years ago when I bought the
chiller for my 75 gallon tank. The chiller is a 1/4 HP model, which is not
nearly good enough for a 650 gallon tank, but I already had it, so I plumbed it
in. The small chiller is useless on this tank; it runs constantly and barely
changes the temperature. After about 2 days I gave up on the chiller which is
now unplugged (electric bill is high enough already!) and purchased two 20-inch
box fans at Home Depot. I put the fans to blow across the tank top and the
lights whenever the MH lights come on. The fans use MUCH less power and keep the
temperature constant.
Of course, this is
illusory; The fans simply move the heat out of the lights/aquarium into the
surrounding room. This of course means I need a good air conditioning unit for
the room. (3000 watts of lights, 1000 watts of pumps, all in a 9x12 room! In
fact, before I had the AC unit on-line, I came home from work to find the
equipment room behind my aquarium was well over 100°F! This high ambient
temperature of course makes the heat go back into the aquarium; luckily it takes
a large tank a long time to heat up - the water temperature had only risen about
3 degrees, so little damage was done.
I installed an 18,000 BTU
ductless-split air conditioning unit to keep the room cool. The picture at right shows the wall
unit; the hose coming down on the right is for the water condensation to drip
into the sink. This is more BTUs than I needed, but I wanted a margin of safety.
Ductless split simply means that the compressor is outside the house on the
ground, much like a central-air system, but instead of having ducts going
throughout the house, you simply have a wall unit that sucks air through and
cools it. Perfect for a single room where you don't want a window-unit or can't
find a window-unit powerful enough. I have the room thermostat set to 76°F. 
