Water Temp

[fish fillet]

We had a scorcher here in Sydney today, temp reached 45 degress celcius out my way. I have an air conditioner (God bless it) in my house and whilst doing a great job in other rooms it isn't too effective in the room where the fish tank is. Hmmmm.

I kept my eye on the thermometer most of the day and the water temp did get up to 30 degrees. So, is this safe? Is there anything I can do to lower the temp? Obviously the heater wasn't kicking in at all, but the lights which are on a timer were on most of the day. I kept the lid of the tank up, whether this helped I don't know.

I know the lights give off a lot of heat so I was wondering would it be safe to leave the lights off the odd day when its really hot in summer? I don't want my plants to die that's all, they seem to be doing really well with lots of new growth.

I have two fluro tubes, one is normal colour the other a bit purplish. Can someone please tell me which is for the fish and which is for the plants, cos maybe I could turn the fish one off at least?

Thanx everyone

 

[fish fillet]

Oh and another very newbie question......

how come my envelopes, that appear in the first column next to each thread I post, have a black spot in the middle...and ....err....no-one else's seem to??

 

[morleyz]

could use a simple box fan to blow cooler air into the room from the rest of the house, or you could place it to blow over the tank. Keeping the lids open will help. Also, keep the lights on the bare minimum for the plants you have...If the room doesn't get daylight, just shift the photoperiod earlier or later in the day so most of the lights being on is when it's not so hot.

The envelopes with dots indicate a thread that you have participated in...so all of the threads you've posted to will have a dot.

And to think I'm looking at the thermometer here and it's only 8 degress...and that's Fahrenheit.

 

[Cichlid Woman]

One of the worst things about a too-warm tank is that it makes any trace of ammonia in there a lot more toxic. So you might want to test a time or two for that, when the temperature really rises in there. Thought: do you use tapwater for water changes? Just doing a change would lower the temp in the tank a bit, then, wouldn't it? If it fluctuates much, though, you'd have to deal with ich. Hmmmmm.

You could float a bag of ice in there, but I've heard that's not all that effective. If the room has windows, keeping the blinds closed would help, and just use the fluorescent lights on the tank. Add a fan, as mentioned--maybe that would do it. Can't think of anything else!

HTH.

-- Pat

 

[NJ Devils Fan]

I would put a big bag of ice in there and unplug the heaters so that they don't go on if the ice gets next to them.

How big is your tank?

 

[fish fillet]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

My tank is a 20g. Today is cooler than yesterday but if we get another really hot day I might try a bag of ice and I will cut down on the lights. I will be glad when this cycling thing is over.....I wake up every morning and virtually do a head count, then breathe a sigh of relief when there are no fatalities....lol

 

[NJ Devils Fan]

fish fillet, thats what I used to do years ago when I had no idea what cycling was. I just put a bunch of fish in and every morning, I would find 1 or 2 dead. Once, there were 5 dead. I was in shock the whole day and had no idea why it happened.