My tank is turning into fish soup!!!

[mollybabes]

I live in California, and while it has not been all that hot lately, I came home to find my tank at around 85F! I promptly opened the canopy, opened all my windows and turned on the fans. This morning it is at 78. I am leaving on vacation soon, so I will not beable to do that anymore, my room will be all closed up. Does anyone know anything about aquarium coolers, if I should use one, and if it is worth it? Also where would I get a fairly inexpensive one, as I am on a budget? I don't believe petsmart or petco have any.

Thanks for everyone's help!!

[wetmanNY]

Have you removed the heater from this tank? No sunlight hits the tank, right?

Chillers are wildly expensive and extravagantly wasteful of electricity.

[slipknottin]

try to get a fan blowing across the water surface.

[thom336]

I agree with wetman, chillers are an awful lot of money - I was looking through my catalogue recently and the cheapest was about £300...sorry, dont know what that is in dollars.

[thom336]

And of course I also agree with slipknottin...running a fan over the tank works well for me - sorry your post only appeared after I had posted mine.

[kreblak]

There is no such thing as an inexpensive chiller. Try slip's suggestion of using a fan on the water surface. It is a remarkably simple and effective solution.

Thom336,
300 pounds sterling comes to $480 U.S. (roughly)

[thom336]

Well, there you have it then! lol. Cheers.

[ChilDawg]

They're much cheaper in Drs. Foster and Smith's catalog, but the electric bill is going to go up like crazy, and they're not always the most effective, especially if they are small for the necessary purpose. I'd go with surface agitation, as oxygen seems to be the solution to most of a hot tank's problems. (Understocking the tank isn't all that bad of an idea, either...)

[slipknottin]

Originally posted by ChilDawg
They're much cheaper in Drs. Foster and Smith's catalog,

Are they? I thought they were all $500+ except for the thermoelectric chillers, which dont do much for dropping temps at all.

[ChilDawg]

Slip, if they don't really work, then that statement is completely true...the non-thermoelectric ones are over $500+.

I'd just do a DIY thing with a dorm fridge/freezer combo for the sake of cost...

[slipknottin]

The ice probes make maybe a 1 or 2 degree temp difference in a 30 gallon tank. The bigger external unit I havent heard much about, but it doesnt seem like it would be that much more effective than the iceprobes are.

The new DIY chillers are being made out of the $99 home depot AC units. With a decent amount of titanium coil (going to cost +$100) you can cool a large tank pretty efficiently, and with the AC unit being mounted outside, the heat isnt getting added back to the room.

[ChilDawg]

Sounds like a plan...speaking of which, I'm gonna ask in DIY for plans for that...

[JamisonBWolsh]

Babes:

what part of California? I live in the san fernando Valley and it hit 103 yesterday and 105 today so far... Any of those products mentioned earlier would not do good in this type of heat. My suggestion (and what I do) is to have a room air conditioner going during the day hours and off at night. That would work great and is not that expensive to run...

[TomFromStLouis]

How would this fan idea affect a CO2 injected tank? I have a temperature problem but hesitate to send all my CO2 back into the air from surface agitation. Would simply removing the glass top (leaving the light hood in place) aid cooling or heat the tank up more? In my case the heat is coming from the 220W of light on a 75g.

[ChilDawg]

The fan would definitely get rid of some of the CO2...but so would all the heat!!!