water cooler

[khyle]

hello guys!

my tanks temp. is rising up to 31 deg.C. my fishes started to get stressed and die. i almost lost half of my fishes. the blower cannot suffice anymore to lower dowm the temp of my tanks and i cannot leave the a/c on for 24 hrs. or else i'll get broke from paying high electric bills.

is there any sort of aquatic cooler used for aquariums, or is there anyways to lower down the temp of my tanks?

thanks guys for your answers in advance.

cheers!

 

[Orion]

There are chillers made for aquariums, but those are really expensive. There is also a DIY chiller made from a mini-refrigerator and tubing. Less control over the temp than the store bought ones, but less money too.

Increasing the surface agitation will help lower the temp some. Probably not a lot on it's own, but with another method might help.

 

[khyle]

thanks, orion. but the tank already has 2 powerheads and the air bubble. the fishes tends to gulp air from the surface of the water. i'm afraid there might be a negative impact on the fishes if i will put more current on the surface of the water.

temporarily i did some re-arrangments and groupings of the fishes left. for the meantime i have put my community fishes in the 100gal at the kitchen where there is an a/c i turned on during the day. the BP(f) and red texas(m) pair used to be at the kitchen was housed in the 15gal in my bedroom. they spawned and now fanning the eggs.
the single ryukin used to be in the 15gal in my bedrm was now in the other 15gal in the kitchen w/ the live bearers. i put a diviver.

the 100gal in the living rm is now empty. i'll stop re-stocking for now until i resolved the problem or until winter.

i'll check if there's a DIY chiller at my lfs. i hope i could find one.

 

[homebunnyj]

You have to build the diy chiller yourself, thus the 'diy'. Here's a link with instructions. They start about halfway down the page.

Aquarium chillers

 

[Lotus]

Most fish should be able to cope with those temperatures, as long as you stock lightly and have plenty of surface movement. Our tanks regularly get up to 86F/31C in the summer when we have the a/c turned down during the day.

Higher temperatures reduce the oxygen in the water, so adding plants, stocking lightly and making sure you have plenty of surface movement should be OK.

Chillers are useful, but they use the same technology as an air conditioner. So, they may reduce your electricity bill somewhat, but they'll still contribute to it.

Putting a small fan blowing across the tank may help a little bit, but not that much if the temperature in the house is hot anyway.

If you do have temperature swings, that's fine, as long as they're gradual. Don't add cold water or a lot of ice cubes to a tank, as it could cool the tank too fast.

 

[MissFishy]

I agree with lotus, your fish should be fine at that temperature, you may want to investigate if there is something else going on, like ammonia poisoning. If you want to lower the temp cheaply, you can set up some fans to blow across the surface of the water, sounds silly and basic, but it works.

 

[khyle]

You have to build the diy chiller yourself, thus the 'diy'. Here's a link with instructions. They start about halfway down the page.

Aquarium chillers

thanks, homebunnyj. big help. i didn't realize the meaning of DIY. oh, it's do it yourself! but i'm not a handyman. so i guess i have to compare the prices of the ready-mades and the prices of materials to be used for the diy chiller. if the diy chiller is more cheap and convenient to use then i have to find a handyman to construct it for me.

thank you all guys for the advices! i really love this group.

cheers!*thumbsup2

 

[1077]

There are those who in emergencies,, Myself incuded, have utilized different sized plastic bottles filled with water and frozen. These can then be placed in the aquarium to cool the water. Larger two litre jugs for larger aquariums,and smaller bottles or jugs ,for smaller tanks.
For do it yourself chillers in my view,, It will be the length of the coiled tubing inside the DIY chiller that determines it's effectiveness by providing more contact time inside the DIY chiller. Many of these small fridges used for some DIY chillers, are much better at insulating already cold products than they are at actually cooling something such as warm water given that the water will be constantly moving in and out . Thus the length of the coiled tubing , plastic,, (wouldn't feel comfortable with copper) ,should have considerable length to allow for longer contact time as mentioned. Just my Two cents.

 

[Orion]

The length of the tube, IMHO is also directly related to the rate of the water flow. If you have 40 ft of tubing that's not going to do you much good if your shooting water out of there at 500 gph. Something like this is far from an exact science, and would require a lot of tweaking to get the output temp close to where you want it.

I've had this sort of setup on my mind a lot lately. I think it would make a wonderful addition to a keg. *celebrate