In-stream ecological processes like primary production and community respiration are known to vary across temporal and spatial scales. Addressing this variability is one of the most persistent problems in stream ecology, yet only a handful of studies have explicitly tested if ecological processes measured at the small scales can be ‘scaled-up’ to describe larger spatial scales.  Here we conducted a 40 day consumer manipulation experiment (i.e. fish and shrimp removal) to test top down consumer effects and in-stream processes within three streams in the wet/dry tropics of northern Australia. At the conclusion of the 40 days stream metabolism measurements were taken at the patch scale using small benthic metabolism chambers (7L) and compared to single-station whole stream metabolism measurements taken at the reach (~20m) scale. Gross primary production (GPP) measurements were greater at the patch versus reach scale and no significant differences were observed between consumer exclusion control/treatment groups. In comparison, community respiration (CR) was higher (up to 25 times in some cases) at the reach scale compared to measurements at the patch scale. Mainly due to differences in community respiration, the photosynthesis to respiration (P:R) ratio was revealed to be autotrophic (>1) at the patch scale and heterotrophic  (<1) at the reach scale. This research highlights the difficulty in ‘scaling up’ these ecological processes, particularly in the underestimation of community respiration due to excluding sub-surface respiration. Future work would benefit from a better understanding of the mechanisms behind the differences in the results across spatial scales.