Beating the heat!
 

Hello everyone

Today I came home to my 200g reading 87 degrees. Yikes! This is just over 30 in Celcius. I run 12 T5 fixtures 12 hours a day. Im thinking of adjusting the light timer and I have put a fan overtop the aquarium with the lid open (the lid has always been open this summer). I also filled up 3 ziplock bags of ice and they are floating in the tank. My fish don't seem too bothered and there is plenty of aeration. My zoas look sad though :( (most polps not open) but mushrooms and frogspawn don't seem too bothered. I'm still worried about my fish and corals dealing with these hot temps. Fish include dwarf angels, kole tang, royal gramma, mandarin dragonet, tomato clown, skunk clown and banggai cardinals.

Anyone else have this problem? Is there any aqurium products such as canopy fans out there that are good? I'm in Calgary btw. Temp has already gone down to 86 in about an hour (don't want to drop it too fast).

Thanks!

Yea mine was 84.6 today, everything liokes normal, but I bought an airconditioner today, so the baby could hopefully sleep tonight.

Summer... Lol

Couple years ago I tried the ice pack idea when my FW tank hit 85-87 ...
Didn't help, just melted the ice
I went through 2 bags of ice and 1/2 dozen ice packs, to no avail
I ended up buying a chiller :wink:

Glad to hear it's working for you

If you have a controller, program it to start turning lights off @ diff temps

Inexpensive 120mm computer fans and a 12v powersupply work well

Easiest way to beat the heat is to run your lights at night until the temps drop back down to "normal"

thats my plan:)

haha was just gonna post this lol:P

Thanks everyone! The nighttime lights is a good idea! If only I could figure out my husbands jimmy rigging on the light timers :confused:

I added a couple of desk fans to my tanks, it's worked great so far.

A multi-prong attack is best. Reverse photoperiod (lights on at night as suggested), shorter photoperiod (8-9 hrs vs 12 hrs), and fans.

However, when it became really hot in here in the past, I plugged in my 12000 btu AC and kept myself and the tanks nice and cool (I still went with reverse photoperiod).

We too have AC, but keeping a tank cool without it is something all should know about :wink:

Three letters LED. Best move I ever made. More cost effective would be switching the lights to nights though.

I had to take my chiller off line this week due to some electrical upgrades my landlord decided to do (just in time for the heat. Awesome). I hit 85 today and I'm pretty sure it was higher yesterday; it was 84 when I got home at 11pm.

I think everyone above covered the major points. Reverse period should do the trick. Worked well for me in the past.

im running leds and im pushing 81 degrees right now

My main tank is fully LED (28 x 10w emitters; mix of 455 nm blues, 10000k, 6500k, and 20000k) and the tank doesn't get warm from the lights at all.

currently still 88 lol lights been out all night:P

I usually keep my tank at 84F with a controller that turns a fan on at 84.5 and lights out at 85.

Central air for me :)

Wow, that's 31C :surprise:

And your's is about 29.5C

Too hot for my likin' for any tank
Hope you're guys' tanks don't care about the 'xtra heat http://r12.imgfast.net/users/1211/34...les/492339.gif

i have led lights and im still running a chiller in these temps! keepin the tank at a nice 80 :) but i live in a small apartment with a 95 gallon tank :) it gets toasty in the apartment wich sucks

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the OP is looking for options besides chillers

No where in this thread says no chillers other ideas please. A chiller or an ac unit in the room are great ideas to keep your tank cool better cost saving way then changing to led wich will run you like 2000$ on that size tank

I keep all my windows open all night long, then I close the ones facing the sun during the day, and I run every fan in the house I can

Makes a big difference ...

And when I can't stands the heat no more, I turns on the AC and burn the power baby !!!

Only takes an hour or 2 to cool our whole house down with our 2 units

There, is that what you wanted to hear ? :mrgreen:

I only thought the OP wanted options other than AC :wink:

I have found that with an air conditioner I can avoid a chiller for the tank and keep myself nice and cool in the process. They use a lot of electricity though! I just love my Hydro bill in September LOL.

I'm interested in hearing the impact, if any, on livestock when suddenly confronted with a reverse photo period. I'd guess it's not much of an issue for coral, but wouldn't fish get jet lag or something? Feeding schedule suddenly out of phase? I have a breeding pair of Maroon Clownfish & a sudden shift like that would surely mess with the spawning? Thankfully LED lighting has helped significantly in keeping the temperature down during the day. The old MH/T5HO set up would have caused issues by now. Don't think I'll want or need to switch to a reverse photo period.

So far with open windows at night, closed during day & my DIY LED fixture, the house & tank temperature have been staying in the mid 20s C, that's somewhere around the 80F mark. Looks like forecast calls for extended period in the 30s for Vernon, so I will have to get out the portable AC & fire it up within the next few days I reckon. Usually set if up in the dining room, not far from the tank.