need to cool my tanks!

rugrat

Medium Fish
Sep 19, 2009
51
0
0
north jersey
#1
I have a 5g and a 10g and both of them are hovering right around 87 and it's not even the hottest part of the day... help!

I've shut the lights off and opened as much as I could w/o inviting the fish to jump out, and I opened the back of the filter too. I have a little fan going across the top of the 10g but it's not helping. What can I do? Ice cubes in the filter? heh.
 

anshuman

Large Fish
Nov 16, 2009
686
0
0
Mumbai India
#9
I have same issue here. the temps are hovering at 90F avg and more. i finally got CPU Fan and made a DIY clip-on for the fan, then used 12 watt adapter to power it. its silent fan, within 12 hours, temp has dropped more than 10F. If i put my hand in water, it feels v cool. the fish have perked up too.

let me know if you want some pics of it (to get idea) , i strongly suggest you go for this fan.

BTW the water evaporates as the fans run on the surface. so need to add 2 gallons of water next day to keep the levels up.
 

Feb 27, 2009
4,395
0
36
#10
Yup, evaporation will increase with the air movement. Be sure to increase surface aggitation (air stones, etc) if the water temp gets hotter than normal. Warmer water cannot hold as much oxygen as cooler water.
 

erc2995

Small Fish
Mar 13, 2010
44
0
0
#12
you could try taking ice cubes and put them in a bag and put the baggie in the back of your filter this way the ice cubes cool down the water thats already in the tank and the water from the ice cubes thats not treated does not get in your tank
 

rugrat

Medium Fish
Sep 19, 2009
51
0
0
north jersey
#13
I have same issue here. the temps are hovering at 90F avg and more. i finally got CPU Fan and made a DIY clip-on for the fan, then used 12 watt adapter to power it. its silent fan, within 12 hours, temp has dropped more than 10F. If i put my hand in water, it feels v cool. the fish have perked up too.
Thanks for the tip. I was actually looking for a small clip-on fan I used for my kids when they were babies, that was battery operated, but couldn't find it. I guess that would be my best bet if I can find it!

you could try taking ice cubes and put them in a bag and put the baggie in the back of your filter this way the ice cubes cool down the water thats already in the tank and the water from the ice cubes thats not treated does not get in your tank
I actually did end up doing this on my own after my post. It didn't help much, the ice melted pretty quickly. I had more luck with floating one of those lunchbox ice packs (in a sealed baggie) and then plants between it and the fish, but they didn't seem to want to go near it anyway.


Lights are still off today though the temps are a little lower, but still on the high end of acceptable, so I kept the lights off. I did have them on for a little bit though, and today was water change day so I used slightly cooler water.
 

Aug 16, 2009
1,318
0
0
SW Pennsylvania
#14
The bad thing about ice cubes is they can make the water have temperature swings. Temperature swings are worse for your fish than a high temperature.
The water you add to the tank should be the same temperature as the water in the tank. Like I said, temperature swings are way worse than high temperature.
Did you turn your air conditioning on?
 

Feb 27, 2009
4,395
0
36
#17
you can just turn your heaters down.
It's likely the climate in the area making the temperatures high. I doubt anyone would be here asking how to lower their tank's temperature if they had the heater set to make it too hot! Worth checking the setting though.

You can leave the heater in, leaving it plugged in or not. It won't turn on to raise your water's temperature unless the water is below the set temperature.

rugrat-those clip-on fans work well. I used them in Florida with my saltwater reef when temps got in the 80s in the water (they need to be in the 60s to low 70s). I had a 110 gallon then and used 4 fans to blow across the water's surface. I could drop the water 10 degrees doing that. I also converted my fish to an opposite schedule. Corals (like your plants) need some light or they will eventually die, so I only ran my lights at night, when the temperature was the lowest, so the lights wouldn't add to the heat problem. Just a thought...

Beware though, that the fans will increase your water's evaporation (that's how the heat is carried out of the tank). Just make sure you are doing your normal water changes, not JUST topping off. If the water is lowered in the week by say 10% and you normally do a 20% water change, take out 20% MORE water, then add back 30%. Do do otherwise will not dilute the toxins you are trying to remove during a water change. The evaporation will increase the concentration of the nitrates (hopefully you have no ammonia or nitrite, but would concentrate those too).
 

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