Beat the Heat

[fishylittlenemo]

Hey all, summer is starting to kick in now and its startin to get alittle warm out. My tank is gettin a tad warm and i was thinking on how i could lower the temp slowly. I thought about putting a few ice cubes in there or just dumping cool water in little by little. Any suggestions on how to beat the heat...inexpensively lol? Also I have a 29 gallon tank.

[tropicfishman]

now thats intresting, because I was about top ask the same exact thing, and I too havea 29, scary to think we all think the exact same on ehre LOL

[Zagz]

I turn the lights off more in the day, that really helps.

[xkenneth]

Turn on the AC? Your tank should automatically adjust to room temperature + heater. So just keep the AC down.

[joannde]

A fan blowing over the surface of the water can reduce the temperature a couple / few degrees also.

[tropicfishman]

I'm gonna try the fan thing if I can get a fan up that high lol

[7Enigma]

I got lucky. This week we have had the first heat "wave" (southerners please don't laugh, I grew up in Florida so I'm familiar with the humid HEAT). Weather's been in the 90's the last couple of days, but like I said I'm lucky.

Why?

About 3 days ago I noticed 2 of my barbs flashing. I looked them over but they looked fine. I decided to preempt a possible Ich outbreak and treat for Ich. So I let the temp of the tank steadily climb, and now I have it held at about 88.5F with the use of the heaters. I figure I'll give it about 20days or so and then bring it back down to 83-85F, depending on the weather (its currently in a room with no A/C so I'd like to keep it close to ambient.

From what I've seen the fan is the best/easiest method for minor cooling, but I agree to keep the lights off more during the day (especially if not planted).

[justrelax]

after being away this last weekend, i came home to find my tank at 88! i normally keep it at 77, so this was quite a climb... popped in to chat and purr hooked me up with a great idea, ice cubes in a baggie! so i went to the freezer and filled up a couple freezer bags with ice cubes and just put them into the tank with the lid closed on them. had to change the cubes out every fifteen minutes or so, but it got the temp down nice and gradually without a pwc, or putting a bunch of chlorine filled ice cubes right in the tank. in the meantime i fired up the a/c to get the room temp down, but the ice cubes really helped the tank get some instant relief! a great fix to a heat emergency.

[7Enigma]

Glad to hear you brought the temp down, but 88F isn't so bad. My tank is being treated for possible Ich right now and its at 88.5F and the fish are happy and heatlthy.

[SkullJug]

The only thing I hate about summer is keeping the bloody tank cool!!!!!

The only thing I've found that really works well is to freeze aquarium water in icecream containers then dump it in your tank(Without the icecream containers). The key to this is to do it at NIGHT as well !!!! You can use water frozen in bottles but I've had very limited success with this.

Start the day with the tank at a low temperature and it's not to hard to keep it there - Once you let it heat up it's a bugger to get it back down again. A fan blowing on the surface is really helpful

I pack the sides and back of my tank with styrofoam to help it maintain it's temperatre - I also remove the hood to limit the heating effect on the light.

That being said I live in brisbane where we get up to 40c so you may not need to go to these extremes.