Any other ways to cool the water?

[NJ Devils Fan]

Is there any other way other than water changes, a chiller, and ice cubes in bags to make the water cooler? Like, would putting a fan on the side of the tank do anything?

[TKOS]

I run a fan over my tank, though only because that is the only place I can place the fan to circulate air through my room. My tank runs at 72-72 F and the fan doesn't seem to do anything to the temp. I don't know what would happen if it was much hotter but sorry to say I notice no difference if it runs or not.

[Drake Titan]

i was just gonna post this question!

its so **** hot right now in the bay area....100 degrees everywhere

my apartment faces the sun all day...with huge windows....and NO AC!!!!!!..i did put a frozen water bottle in the filter of the fish tank for my 55...but i couldn't in the 10....i'm bet that tank is low 80's right now....problem is there is goldfish in it!!!

is it ok just to stick ice cubes in the water?

what about doing a partial water change...and using really cold water....would that be too much shock?

[thecowman]

The partial water changes idea would work, but not for a very long time. In order to avoid shocking the fish, you wouldn't be able to change very much at a time if you're replacing it with cold water (maybe 10-15%?). It would quickly heat back up, water heats up a lot faster than it cools down. In order for this to be an effective method of cooling, you would have to do the water changes as frequently as possible.

[Winnie]

When you make ice cubes for the aquarium, be sure to treat the water first.
Keeping the canopy open with a fan running will definitely keep the water cooler.

[Mr.Jingles]

Isnt it the opposite? I thought water cooled quicker...lemme look this one up.

um...well, after much research that ended up in frustration at the search engine, ive concluded that I can't conclude anything.

anyways. the rater at which water cools and heats is exponential and the inverse (square root). I think I can work this out in my head.

if you are looking at a graph, given that the heat applied to the water has a greater temp than the water itself, you would notice that the water increases in temperature dramatically, but as it gets closer to the temperature of the heating mechanism, the rate at which it heats up considerably slows down. technically, water never reaches the temperature of the heat applied to it. (lets say the temp difference was 50 degrees F)

the same is true for cooling water, but opposite. if you take that water that is heated up, and place it in a room with air that is considerably colder than it (50 degrees F cooler), the water will cool down drastically. However, as it gets closer to the room temperature, the rate at which is cools will slow down drastically. thus, technically, water never really reaches the temperature of the colder room.

1. applying this to the phrase "water heats faster than it cools"

Im not sure if this is true. The reason you might say this for the situation on hand is because the room temp is greater than the ice cube temp. even if you did get the water temp 15 degrees lower than the room temp, the water would still heat right back up to the room temp. While you cool it tho, it seems like it takes longer because there is always more heat applied to the water than there is the abscence of heat. its like trying to cool down a pot of boiling water. it just doesnt cool down as fast as it heats.

Im not sure if the same can be said for a cold tank. if the room temp is always at 60, can you heat it up quicker than it cools back down? yes.

lets back that up. lets say you were using ice cubes that were actually "boiling cubes". so assuming you use the same amount of heating cubes as you did ice cubes, would the tank heat up faster? probably not.

it all boils down to the methods employed. if you have a chiller, im sure the water would cool faster than it heated. its just so much easier to make something that will heat the water. so naturally we think, water heats faster. well...not really.

but someone correct me if im wrong.

cause I dont really know what im talking about.

to be on topic...get air conditioning...more convinient, cheaper than a chiller, and you get multiple benifits (your fish live, you live, we all live). so...I dont really have anything else that is very productive.

good luck cooling your tanks.

[slipknottin]

water heats and cools at the same rate... ;)

Efficiency wise, its alot easier to add heat than to remove it.

[nanahachi]

thanks for starting this thread NJ!!

my tank was btwn 82 and 86 when I walked in tonight!:( I just put some ice cubes (with a drop of dechlorinator...useless I'm sure) in a ziplock bag, and tossed it in the tank. 30 mins ago I added maybe 5-10% new, cool water.

any and all tips would help. Like Drake said, we're burning up here in the Bay (its be mostly cool lately, until this week... unlike everywhere else it seems)

thanks!

[slipknottin]

As long as humidity levels are moderate, fans are your best bet. One large fan blowing across the surface of the water will knock the temp down quite a bit. Other than the labor intensive chores of adding ice, or doing water changes, the only other solutions are some form of electric chiller for the tank, or an AC for the room.

[Tightdog1]

OMG DRAKE TITAN yea its so freakin hot and its pissing me off, im kinda glad my pacus jsut broke my heater cause i dont need it right now. but the best way and cheapest way to cool, your tank that ive found is to freeze balloons filled with water and put them in the tank.

jsut take it slow because too much of a drop in temp over short period in time stresses the fish and can be deadly.

[Drake Titan]

my tanks were 84 degrees when I got home....added bags of ice....10% water change....so hopefully its working...getting it down slowly


as far as my temp......thank god for ice cold corona!!!:D

:cool:

[JP457]

drop the water level like 3 inches below the filter. the additional aeration will be good in heat and the fall will help cool the water w/ evaporation. Its been working in ny not sure about where its really hot.

[Cloud-9]

My advise would be to get one of those window units. Go to a home improvement store and you will find a huge selection. I think most of them can simply plug into a regular grounded A/C outlet, unless you get a really big unit. Just cool the room with the tank. That's your best bet. Freezing water and all that stuff is very high maintenance. You can get a window unit quite cheap.

[NJ Devils Fan]

Ok, this is what I did. Last night, I got an old fan we had downstairs and I put it on a stool next to the tank. In the back of the tank is about an inch and a half opening, so I tried my best to aim the fan at it. I opened the back of the closer Emperor 400. The fan is also getting under the shop light and is cooling it. I plugged it into the same power strip that the lights are plugged into so the lights and the fan will go on at the same time, at 9:00 a.m. The temperature was about 83 degrees last night. When I got home today at about 12:45 p.m., the temperature dropped down to 76 degrees. I can't believe there is that big of a jump. I had the fan at the highest setting. I put it to the lowest setting now. What a great idea. I will just keep it the same way for the summer.

[Matak]

The fan won't cool the tank at all unless it is wet on the outside of the tank. Air movement doesn't cool, only the evaporation of moisture causes cooling.

I agree with the AC idea. For a reasonably low cost, you can keep yourself and your tank(s) cool. It might make sense to move your tank(s) to a smaller room if you can't afford a big unit.

It's too bad we can't pull up last years multiple threads on how hot it is, how to beat the heat etc.

[allwet]

i just lift the lid on the hood and start the fan and in time the temp drops to 78 or 80 degrees.sometimes the temp will get up to 82 or so and thats when i do the above mentioned.might help to turn off your hood lights also,especially if the bulbs are incadescent.most fish wont mind a temp in the low to mis 80's.allwet.........

[TrashmanTodd]

I would agree! I live in Reno, NV, and it's hot right now. I have all my heaters unpluged, and I make sure the A/C is on. As as far as I'm concerned, that's the easiest way.

Todd

[punch]

Boy, glad I'm not the only one, Been adding cold water to my tank and turned down my heater, My tank is running 82-84
My question is this, don't aquarium heaters have a sensor?
Say you set in for 72, If the temputure goes below 72 it turns on,
above 72 it turns off. It dosn't seem this is working with most heaters tho, If your tank is at 72 and it gets hotter your heater shouldn't turn on, Could a 65 gal. aquarium increase in temp. by 10 degress during the day. (in a closed house with no direct sun?)

[NJ Devils Fan]

Of course, either by the heater or by the temperature in the room.

[dave76]

hey drake my advice would be...get a window unit. that way you can manage the temperature of your tank, and your apartment. I live in texas so we all have central heat and air, It seems that a small ac window unit would be in your fishes best interests as well as yours. I know I dont want to come home to a hundred degree house.

whoops guess I should read all of the posts before I reply, heh!

[WolfPup522]

Thanks for posting this thread! I just found out that my apartment complex is replacing all ACs in my building this week and we will have no AC for 2 days (why they didn't do this before it got so hot, I have no idea!!). Thanks for all the ideas!

[cpr4cpu]

raise the light three inches from the glass top, remove the glass under the light and circulate the fan through there. The light heats the glass, the glass heats the air between the top and the water surface, the water condenses on the glass, is heated then falls back into the tank.

Just remove the glass and keep the warm air from building up under the light. If you have jumping fish, leave the glass on, but force as much air out of the light hood and away from the glass top as you can.

Good luck

[Aderynglas]

I used to freeze 2L plastic lemonade bottles of water and place them in the goldfish tanks and rotate them :D (one to freeze and one cooling the tank :D) but it doesn't stay hot for months over here. We try to be grateful for any sun we get, but it isn't easy when we go from 60 degrees to 80 overnight and the humidity doesn't help either.

Nowadays I just tell my south american tetras to be grateful for homely conditions :D :D

[Jhong]

I did have big problems keeping my tanks cool in the summer months.

Here in Shanghai at the moment the temperature is above 30 C all day. The temperature at night is only a few degrees cooler than during the day.

I only have 2 reasonably small tanks -- a 15 gallon and a 5 gallon fry tank.

The 15 gallon is taken care of as I bought an aquamedic thermoelectric chiller. This works well, but is only useful for smaller tanks (less than 20 gallons). It takes an hour or two to cool my tank by a degree, but puts out a lot of heat and noise. I have installed the chiller in a cupboard, and installed vents and computer case extraction fans in the back of the cupboard. The noise is now very tolerable.

For the smaller tank, I use a 60mm CPU fan blowing down onto the surface (only way it will fit). This increases evaporation and keeps the reported water temp 1 - 2 degrees C below ambient. The CPU fan is not running at full speed to reduce noise -- I run it using a universal "wall wart" plug adaptor. Just check the power rating and you are good to go.

I will add another quiet fan to the "main" tank as well to exhaust heat from the light as the temperature climbs even higher over the next few weeks.

[Matak]

I have a somewhat similar setup with my DIY tank hood, but my fan came from Radio Shack and plugs directly into the light timer.

Jhong, welcome to AC! Stick around and get comfortable, this is a great place to get and give good advice and hang out. :)

What is it like keeping fish in China? Do you have trouble getting items for your tank(s)? In a HUGE city like Shanghai there must be many places to buy fish, especially being in Asia, where many of the species come from.

[Jhong]

Thanks Matak.

Hope to get comfortable here - depends entirely on workload of course!

Keeping fish here is pretty fun. I've had them for about 3 years now. I had never got into fish back home as I always considered the start-up cost to be too high.

I originally started up buying the cheapest of everything -- spent about 30 US dollars for tank, filter, gravel, etc. I have since spent hundreds of dollars upgrading everything!

There are not very many places to buy fish here -- 3 "animal markets" each with 10-20 fish stores. I have one or two shops in the markets which I go to regularly -- one of them has the only reef/marine fish I have found in Shanghai. The quality of local products is improving rapidly, and most big-name imported brands can be found if you're willing to look hard. Shanghai is not so much huge, rather just full of people. It is easy to walk across the city centre in a few hours.

While keping fish is a very traditional passtime in China, animals are generally treated very poorly and anthropomorphism is non-existent. For example, people think nothing of buying a live fish (for eating), dumping it in a bag, and walking around with it all day, still alive in the dry bag before gutting it while it is still alive in the evening. In the markets, painted day-glo fish are common. You even see little painted (and often inbred) baby chicks for 10 cents each, or given away free (in plastic bags) in childrens stores when you spend over 20 dollars. They generally only live a few days. I bought a pair of sorry-looking budgies, and some of my friends are still amazed when I say that they are still alive and healthy only 18 months later. Fortunately, people who go to the trouble (and expense) to keep fish generally will try their best to keep their fish healthy or at least alive. While it can be demoralising to see 150 angels, 20 dead at the bottom in a 2-foot tank at the wholesalers, the downstream shops/stalls seem to be a bit more conscientious.

Shanghai is developing quickly, and respect and care for animals is developing with that. There are a few local websites devoted to people and their pets, even a couple for fish. From what I can tell, the "Help Me! My fish has white spots" kind of questions are just as popular as here -- good news in a way.


Anyway, I didn't mean this to be such a self-centred ramble! Thanks for the welcome!

[Matak]

Well, that didn't qualify as a self centred ramble. Actually, I found it rather interesting.

It is saddening yet encouraging to hear about what is happening in China. You must be transplanted or raised abroad, you have the language and even the colloquialisms down pat.

Welcome again to AC! :)

[Jhong]

Yep, I'm originally from the UK. Was passing through China on travels about 4 years ago and am still here!