Very bad day

[Tyler718]

This has been a very bad two days. The AC in the house went out yesterday and the temp in the house got up to 86 degrees for both days. So this caused the temp in my tanks to shot up to the same.

The wife and I had all the hoods open and had fans blowing across the surface in a feudal attempt to cool the water. Any ways, the AC is fixed now and the temp is very slowly going down. I guess I was lucky that I didn't lose any fish or get them real stressed out.

Just for future reference, what could I have done to try and keep the water cool in a situation like this?

Dave

 

[Max]

you can put ice cubes in a leak proof container and float them in your tank. The fan idea will help to but, keep in mind that your evaportaion will go up. I wouldn't do the ice cube thing unless you can keep a close eye on the tank it's kind of hard to estimate the temp change. Also I'd say your critters were stressed by the temp spike if it lasted very long.
Hth and hope eveything makes it.
Chris

 

[OrionGirl]

I keep a couple 3/4 full water bottles in the freezer all the time. While not practical for full time cooling, they work very well for emergency use. Just make sure it's a clean bottle, and leave the cap loose until it's fully frozen. As needed, place in the sump, or wherever there will be lots of water movement around the bottle.

How much did the temp spike? No AC, fans in the hoods, and even with temps in the 90's, the big tanks seldom rise more than a degree or two. The smaller setups can jump quite a bit, but I've never had a problem because of it--my 10 has hardy shrimp and crabs, and the other inverts never seem to behave differently when the tank does warm up a bit. Think it rose 5 degrees one day (shades weren't drawn ), but it went back to normal by around 9:30 that night.

 

[Tyler718]

The temp went up to 85 degrees or so. My 4 FW tanks I wasn't worried about since this is how I treat for ich outbreaks.

The tank I was worried about was my 60g SW. Since this is my first SW setup, I wasn't sure of the adverse effects. The temp is normally 75 degrees, but over the two days it got up to 84 degrees. Tommorow the water temp should be almost back down to normal, but is there anything that I should be looking out for?

 

[OrionGirl]

What fish do you have in there? I keep the 120's around 78, and they will get up to 83-84 for a few days with no adverse reactions. Unless you're keeping coolwater species, I wouldn't worry much. things to watch for--corals that don't come out to feed, changes in fish behavior, color changes, gasping.

 

[Tyler718]

Originally posted by OrionGirl
What fish do you have in there? I keep the 120's around 78, and they will get up to 83-84 for a few days with no adverse reactions. Unless you're keeping coolwater species, I wouldn't worry much. things to watch for--corals that don't come out to feed, changes in fish behavior, color changes, gasping.

The tank is a 60g FOWLR with 1 Chromis, 2 Percs, 1 Red Fairy Wrasse, and 1 Coral Beauty.

The tank temp is back to normal at 76 degrees and none of them had any of the adeverse effects that you mentioned. If I didn't check my temp because of the heat or the feeling of the water temp, you would have never known that there was even a problem by how the fish were acting. They acted like the temp wasn't even effecting them.

Thanks for the help everybody.