Tank Temperature Emergency!!

[Floyd R Turbo]

I have a 55g community freshwater with mainly livebearers and tetras. I have never needed a heater, the ambient temp along with power heads always kept it around 76-78F. I have switched to a Marineland C360 3 weeks ago and recently removed the power heads, and thought that the temp would drop.

Today it got over 80F in Central Iowa and as of 6pm tonight my tank temp had climbed to 81F. I turned the light off and opened the windows and had to go out for a few hours, when I got back 9pm CDT it was at 82F

From what I understand, that is the max temp for livebearers and most other fish. I put one of the powerheads back in and connected the air feed so it's blowing air and set up a stand fan and pointed it at the tank.

How worried should I be, it's supposed to hit 83F tomorrow???

 

[mgamer20o0]

they should be fine. what i would do is put a fan blowing over the water. also right now take some tank water and freeze it in a water bottle. this way if it gets too hot you can toss them in.

 

[severum mama]

It's likely that your fish will have no problem with it at all. 82 really isn't a big deal. I still agree with MG though about the frozen water bottle. It could help you out in a pinch if your weather gets really hot.

 

[HN1]

they should be fine. what i would do is put a fan blowing over the water. also right now take some tank water and freeze it in a water bottle. this way if it gets too hot you can toss them in.

MG's on the money. He must be on his meds tonight.

 

[Zagz]

The fish will be fine. If the temps continue to rise, just add an airstone or bubbler if you don't have one to keep the oxygen up.

 

[mgamer20o0]

MG's on the money. He must be on his meds tonight.

they slipped it into my drink.

 

[yohann976]

I also live in central Iowa and my tank used to get really hot during the summer months (90 degrees +). My house as a whole didn't get that hot, but the room where I had my tank did. I just put clip-on fan on the back of the tank and directed it towards the water. It lowered the temp to an acceptable level quickly. The only disadvantage is that I had to top off the water more.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I successfully lowered the tank temp a degree or two with the fan on high for a couple hours, then left it on low with the lids open and the door to the cabinet open, and by 430am when the baby woke up it was down to around 76, 75 by the AM. It's at around 77 now, so slowly climbing.

Yeah the room it's in stays warm because the room doesn't have great air flow and on top of it my computer is in there and I leave it on 24/7 otherwise it has issues, even though it's got a 'cool' processor, I beg to differ.

I like the frozen tank water idea, good in a pinch.

Does anybody know the acceptable maximum tank temperature? I guess it would make sense that since these are tropical fish, temps in the mid to high 80s wouldn't be lethal as long as it's not maintained all day, but I would like to know for sure. Here's my tank:

2 Molly adults
7 Molly fry about 3 months old
2 Guppy adults
5 Guppy fry 3 months old
6 Platy adults
1 Platy fry 4 months old
2 Longfin Danios
3 Swordatil Adults, 1 is constantly pregnant (dropped 3/31, 4/29, expecting next drop 5/29)
1 SAE
1 Rainbow Shark
1 Scissortail Rasbora
Tetras:
1 Red Eye
1 Black Skirt
2 Serpae
2 Blue
5 Neon

 

[severum mama]

You have very hardy fish. I'd bet that even the temp swings throughout the day aren't stressing them much, as I'm sure it's really gradual. Anytime I have to treat ich, I do so with the tank at 87-88 degrees with no ill effects, and I leave the temp up for about 3 weeks usually. I know it's not the same thing really, but I still think your fish will tolerate it just fine.

Why not keep 2 bottles of tank water so you can rotate them every other day? Then you would always have one ready to go when your temp starts to climb.