•This article discusses the effect of temperature and the applied magnetic field strength, through SQUID-VSM studies, on the magnetic behavior of the cobalt nickel ferrites nano powders.•The magnetic behavior is studied through BH curves, BH Vs H curves, ZFC and FC curves.•These powders synthesized by a simple and environmentally benign method were further characterized to study their structural and optical behavior of the samples through XRD, TEM, RAMAN and DRS studies.•Thus it gives and elaborate study on these magnetic samples and their possible applications. Spinel ferrites have come a long way in their versatile applications. The ever growing applications of these materials demand detailed study of material properties and environmental considerations in their synthesis. In this article, we report the effect of temperature and applied magnetic field strength on the magnetic behavior of the cobalt nickel ferrite nano powder samples. Basic structural properties of spinel ferrite nano particles, that are synthesized by an environmentally benign method of auto combustion, are characterized through XRD, TEM, RAMAN spectroscopy. Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS) is done to understand the nickel substitution effect on the optical properties of cobalt ferrite nano particles. Thermo magnetic studies using SQUID in the temperature range 5 K to 400 K and room temperature (300 K) VSM studies are performed on these samples. Fields of 0Oe (no applied field: ZF), 1 kOe (for ZFC and FC curves), 5 kOe (0.5 T), 50 kOe (5T) (for M-H loop study) are used to study the magnetic behavior of these nano particles. The XRD,TEM analysis suggest 40 nm crystallites that show changes in the cation distribution and phase changes in the spinel structure with nickel substitution. Raman micrographs support phase purity changes and cation redistributions with nickel substitution. Diffuse reflectance study on powder samples suggests two band gap values for nickel rich compounds. The Magnetic study of these sample nano particles show varied magnetic properties from that of hard magnetic, positive multi axial anisotropy and single-magnetic-domain structures at 5 K temperature to soft magnetic core shell like structures at 300 K temperature. Nickel substitution effect is non monotonous. Blocking temperature of all the samples is found to be higher than the values suggested in the literature.