What to do when your water gets too hot?

Hi all

As the Cape Tonians are aware its been less cool of late..... My tank's temperature has now crept to the 30 degree mark with the heater being of.... when does this become a problem, and what can I do?

Thanks!

PB

 

I have removed all my heaters just incase. I have also started up the chiller on my marine system. Water went from 29deg to 25.5deg.

 

A fan over the surface of the water to speed up evaporation helps - in large tanks,you can freeze water in a cooldrink bottle and float this in the tank. Make sure you have PLENTY of aeration - warm water(over 30 deg) holds a lot less oxygen than cooler water..... Heard that Paarl hit 56 degrees today - sjoe!...

 

56! that hectic!

ya chuck some RO ice block in there lol. i have open top so i only get to 26

 

how many lights are you running?

T5's are like heaters lol!

 

T5s pffffffffft - wait till you run 250 or 400watt MH units! Your arm suntans under the light when you work on the tank.

 

@Vez I am running 1 very "flou" 30W, not a T5..... I think I can lick that bulb, although I am not going to try it....

 

Question can you through in loose ice blocks and those blue refreezeable ice bricks ?

 

Using ice/frozen freezer packs should be done only as last resort... Fish can not handle rapid changes in temperature - be CAREFULL !!! Water frozen in a cooldrink bottle will melt slower than a raw ice cube straight in tank - less chance of rapid temp loss. If and when using one of those Blue gel icepack - just make sure it has no holes in it - dont think that blue snotty substance inside would be good for fishies at all...

 

Ok makes perfect sense

 

I'm prob'ly going to stick my head in a hornets nest, but there was a thread about using fans to cool water down.

Personally I didn't find fans very effective.

What I did, and I tried this on an unpopulated tank first, was use ice!

I froze some dechlorinated and aged water into aprox. 500g blocks (500ml water) and as soon as the temperature started to rise, I dumped one of these blocks into the tank.

It melted quite quickly, but the temperature didn't drop drastically. Obviously it must have made a cooler spot in the tank, and the fish seemed to enjoy it, as they congregated and played around under the ice.

When the ice had melted and the cooler water had dissipated, I dumped another block in. You may need to dump a liter or two of tank water to make room for the ice, so that you don't mess on the floor.

I guess it would depend on the size of your tank as to how much, and how often you need to add ice, Just keep an eye on the temperature, and if it starts to drop, slow down with the ice. The ideal is just to stop the tank getting warmer, rather than to try and cool it down once it's already warmed up.

Don't take this as gospel, because I'm not an expert, but it's what I've been doing, and have not suffered any casualties.

Oh, and I added air-stones to help oxygenate the warmer water.

'sperts, if I'm blowing smoke, please chip in, I'll stand corrected!

 

@azurekoi sorry Dude, was writing my post before your post was up. I've tried using ice packs, and water frozen in cooldrink bottles, but they're not as effective as using plain ice.

Not to contradict you, what you say is very valid, every case is different depending on a lot of variables, but this is what I've been doing under my circumstances, and it seems to be working for me.

Do you think it would be okay to carry on, or would I maybe be doing some cumulative long term damage?

 

No probs @Noodle....lol - I just try to go the safest route possible... The trick is as you say,not to rapidly cool your tank,but to gradually bring the temp down to a safer level.... Just dont want folks to go dump 7 trays of ice cubes in their tanks....lol

 

Hi Guys,

I and my fishes are also bloody hot!

With the temps as high as they are at the moment azure, you can put in a piece of ice or a freezer block that is plastic covered and it reduces the temp of a tank, but not really drastically, so I think it is ok.

Another alternative is that you do water changes, but then you have to watch chlorine levels of course, but what I am doing is doing waterchanges and watering my garden with hot aquarium water and putting colder water from the tap into my aquaria.

On top of this switch off all heaters and lights as hot Henk said.

This heat brings new meaning to the words "cool it"

.......dweep....

Dwirk

 

Something I've found useful for smaller tanks (under standard 2ft size) is to get some of those novelty plastic ice cubes and drop them on the water surface, they work reasonably well for small water volumes and no big effort re water changes required while you're melting in said heat! I lived in a flat that reached 38C inside on hot days, this method worked well as you can rotate blocks as they "melt" but no increase in water volume, and easier to monitor/adjust cooling of water with multiple little blocks than with one big one.

 

and when the cube is small enough, the fish can try and chow it, and thats not good for fish!

 

I was thinking of de-frosting some blood worm and re-freezing it and then popping that into the tank ....

 

Ag Vez Man,

You don't have to worry about heat, you are going to have to ask how does one stop one fishes getting washed down the river soon, if I hear how much rain has been falling in Mpumalanga in the last couple of days.

We had very high temps in the Cape Town vicinity yesterday and I had tanks going up to 35C in my garage, all with fishes that can take that heat for a short space of time, but man is it hot..... And it is not even February yet, which is the worst month for heat in the Cape.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hey Guys,

I have just been informed by one of my German suppliers about a cooler for aquarium, it is as though they knew we have a heat wave here. It is operated by a 12V battery, apparently it can reduce the temp of an aquarium by 4 degrees C which is impressive. There are two models a larger and a smaller one. I think I should import some of these. Check this out.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

2 liter coke bottle with frozen water floating in the tank ?