My tank is 84 degrees!!!!! Please help!

[ZacksFlowerhorn123]

Its cycling and nearing the end of the process. Salinity is in check, top offs are done daily, ph is fine... Im ready to add my corals on monday!(yay.) so heres the prob. I live in South Carolina. IT GETS HOT! My mom keeps the house temp at like 78. But the tank is alwways really warm! Its not the lights. Theres no heater in the tank. It has to filters, one is a marineland penguin 200, the other is a aqua clear 20-40. My tank is a 28 bow front.

The tank is never EVER in direct sunlight, and the hot water heater in our house is on the other side of the house... I leave my fan on at all times on high! Which is almost right above the tank.

Soo... Is there like anything i can do? We have a dehumidifier? Not in my room but my parenfs never use it.

I CAN NOT AFFORD A TANK COOLER!! $300 IS A BIT MUCH!

So please help me with this everyone! Thanks so much!

[melosu58]

Get a small fan and blow air across the surface. That will bring it down for sure. You might want to go to Walmart and get a clip on fan. It will cause more evaporation but no problem as all you have to do is add more FW.

[ZacksFlowerhorn123]

How big or how many watts?

[melosu58]

Just a small clip on fan. Something to run air across the surface.

[spoonman]

cheap little clip on fan. Nothing fancy. They usually have them for about $5.

[ZacksFlowerhorn123]

Ok i took the lid off my tank too so ill be picking up a fan. Thanks soo much!

[Schism]

Originally Posted by ZacksFlowerhorn123

Ok i took the lid off my tank too so ill be picking up a fan. Thanks soo much!

Yes removing the lid alone probably helped a few degrees. Small 3-6" fans work great on aquariums blowing across the surface.

[ZacksFlowerhorn123]

Ok thats good to know! Thank you!!!!!

[Holygral]

I would look into a Ranco 2 stage temp controller $125, heater plugs into one end, fan into the other, set the temp and it will cycle the fans/heaters on and off to keep temp stable. If you have a heat problem, you need a way to stabilize it

[ZacksFlowerhorn123]

Errr... Expensive stuff.

[don_chuwish]

I can imagine it'll only get worse through the summer, will a fan keep up? I wonder for my own sake as well.
It's a stop gap emergency measure but I have several water bottles filled & frozen at the ready. With a bit of string & twisty tie attached I can float one or more in the top of the tank, hooked over the rim. My 36G bow front will come down half a degree after melting one 500ml bottle. So I'm gonna upgrade to 1L bottles instead.

- D

[carey]

I also have used the frozen bottle trick to lower the temp in a hurry. My a/c went out last year and all my tanks shot up to almost 90!!! I just stuck in bags of ice into each tank and it lowered the temps quite a bit. Not a perfect solution but good in an emergency.

[Holygral]

Originally Posted by ZacksFlowerhorn123

Errr... Expensive stuff.

Welcome to the reef world, LOL

[bigben2057]

I would just keep the top off and it will prob stay around 80.

[bskerrichard27]

Just save yur money and get a chiller if yur tank won't stabilize temp with fans ..I know there exspensive but was the second best purchase I made good skimmer to be my first

[canonxsi79]

What I used to do when I live in my apartment I usually freeze small water bottles and put them in my sump this will bring the temperature down fast plus you don't introduced any water into the aquarium this works well till you can't get a chiller and also turn your light on in the afternoon good luck.

[SWSCJ]

2 best purchases, chiller and generator. Too much invested, not to protect my investment.