Changes for Summer

[rdd1952]

I live in North Carolina where we get upper 80° to the high 90s from late May to as late as September. I know there are a lot of areas the get much hotter temps than that. Do any of you do anything different in the summer? I will run the AC all summer so the room temp will probably stay about the same so I don't forsee needing to do anything any differently. I was just curious what others do.

 

[troutfly]

I keep my place at about 74 degrees in the summer, we get temperatures up to 115F in the summer, I usually leave my heaters set at the same setting and don't have a problem with them, if you need to lower tank temperatures, one way to do it is with small amounts of ice in the filter, I hope this helps.

 

[SarahBravo]

People in England just get jealous and leave the heating on!!!!!

I know some people actually have fans blowing across of the top of their tanks to keep them cool, I guess marine people might go the full way and buy coolers. I guess you could also do frequent water changes with slightly cooler water, but you'd have to be careful about shocking the fish. After sudden temp increases you can float bottles of cold or frozen water in the tank to lower temps, but again you'd have to be careful about the fish reacting to sudden changes in temps and also that the temp got evenly distributed round the tank.

 

[chishnfips]

well in here in the highlands, there is no summer, winter, spring or autumn. As over here we get all four seasons through out the year.

Yes I have even witnessed snow in august.

We had temperautres of about 23 C here last week and now it's chucking it down we had hail stones yesterday and now it's sunny again.

So as unpredictable as it is. It is too much to think about.

 

[Polardbear]

I wish I only had to deal with 80-90 degrees, we are looking at 112 by Sunday. My biggest concern at the moment is my 55 gallon, even if I keep the house at 80-82 with the lights on the tank will go up to 85-86 easily. When I came home from work at 6:30 am today it was at 81 degrees before I even turned the lights on (and the house has been at 80 degrees for the last week). I'm seriuosly thinking about building a new canopy for it that I can design to provide better air circulation. Right now it just has the stock glass covers that the flourescent lights sit on and I'm thinking if I can get some better air circulation to disperse the heat from the lights it may solve my problem. I'm also considering incorporating some PC fans into the new canopy as well, I know that others on the site have talked about them so I've got some searching to do for old threads. My swordtails seem to handle the heat fairly well, but I'm concerned for them as columnaris has been a frequent past problem and at the warmer temperatures can become a major nightmare. I also don't know how well my corys are going to deal with the warmer temps.

 

[rdd1952]

I wish I only had to deal with 80-90 degrees, we are looking at 112 by Sunday. My biggest concern at the moment is my 55 gallon, even if I keep the house at 80-82 with the lights on the tank will go up to 85-86 easily.

Any particular reason you keep the house so hot? I guess maybe I'm pretty hot natured and like it cool. I'd die if the normal room temp in the house was anything over about 75°, more comfortale at about 72°.

 

[Polardbear]

When it's 115 outside 80-82 with a ceiling fan going feels quite cool. I'd love to keep it cooler but it cost's to much money. My electric bills in the summer months will be just over $200 a month, any cooler and the bill skyrockets.

 

[rdd1952]

I understand. Our house fortunately, is very energy efficient so it isn't too bad.

 

[Isis_Nebthet]

I imagine I have close to the same temps as polardbear. My problem isn't the tanks getting too hot though it's getting to cold if we forget and fall asleep with the evaporative cooler on. If we don't run the cooler we get levels dropping the tanks rather quickly (about 1"/day).

I have one tank that goes down to about three inches by the end of the week no matter what it's a indoor waterfall base about ten gallons in the southern window so I can type to fish forums looking through rushes and trim parrot feather out of the computer.

 

[parker313]

Savannah, Georgia and no, I don't do anything differently. We have the a/c set low enough that the room temp never gets high enough that I need to worry about the tanks overheating.

 

[Bloo]

Any particular reason you keep the house so hot? I guess maybe I'm pretty hot natured and like it cool. I'd die if the normal room temp in the house was anything over about 75°, more comfortale at about 72°.

LOL well our house in South Africa does not have air conditioning and though it's right be the sea and great to catch a sea breeze - when it's 32 Degrees Celsius outside with sky high humidity, it's not going to be much less inside even with the ceiling fans on full blast. Air-conditioning is incredibly expensive and just not an option.

 

[rdd1952]

LOL well our house in South Africa does not have air conditioning and though it's right be the sea and great to catch a sea breeze - when it's 32 Degrees Celsius outside with sky high humidity, it's not going to be much less inside even with the ceiling fans on full blast. Air-conditioning is incredibly expensive and just not an option.

I guess it's all a matter of what we get used to. When I was a kid (52 now) we didn't have A/C and never really thought about it. Now we're spoiled plus I worked for 9 years cutting meat in a grocery store in 36° to 40° every day so I got pretty accustomed to being cold.

 

[Bignose]

To kind of get back to the original topic, there are a few seasonal things I think are a good idea to do. First is I change the heater temperature a few degrees -- warmer in the summer, cooler in the winter. Several reasons for this, the power bills are a little cheaper, but the main reason I like to change the temperatures every season is to foster greater biodiversity in my tanks. Our tanks kept at a constant temperature are great for growing bacteria etc. So good, in fact, that if they are kept exactly the same temperature for a long period of time, any strain of bacteria that is optimal for that temperature may take over. This is not necessarily a harmful bacteria, but in the interest of biodiversity I try not to let any one strain be cultured a great deal. Real nature has very wide biodiversity, and I feel it is healthier to encourage biodiversity.

This is not entirely my own idea, for example, From The Skeptical Aquarist's Site: http/www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/bactin.shtml

Encourage bacterial diversity in the aquarium. This may be unfamiliar advice. I encourage bacterial diversity in several ways. I add a pint of water drawn from a fish-free plant nursery to each aquarium, from time to time. I also vary water temperatures, keeping within comfortable tolerance ranges of the fish, of course; after a couple of months at 77°F, for instance, I might re-set the heater to 74°F for six weeks or so. Why? Well, our constant thermostatically-controlled temperatures favor the success of whatever strains of bacteria are the most ideally-suited to that particular temperature. Mycobacteria marinum reproduces best in the lab at a steamy 33°C. Varying the temperature may avoid inadvertent culturing of dominant strains of bacteria. Seasonal variation of temperature--— within the limits tolerated by the fish--— seems to have a protective effect: Dr. H. Reichenbach-Klinke was suggesting in the 1960s (Diseases of Fishes, TFH, 1965, p. 23), "Obviously the adaptability of the fish has to be considered, but attempts to protect them by varying their temperature seem to be well worth while." I think we've ignored this sound old-fashioned advice, which I first read in William T. Innes' Exotic Aquarium Fishes. As far as tropical fishes are concerned, the difference between surface waters in a slow-moving stream at dawn and at mid-afternoon may be as great as any seasonal differences. "Night is the winter of tropical waters," I recently read.

I also encourage a healthy biofilm, to let "good" bacteria crowd out "bad." I encourage healthy intestinal fauna with a varied diet that includes plenty of roughage from cellulose and chitin.

That is the main thing I do when the seasons change, though some long-term cleaning, like cleaning the tank cover and stuff like that usually is needed once every few months.

 

[CFC]

From the middle of June through to the middle of September i remove the heaters from all my tanks and let them sit at room temperature, which is on average around 70-72f, this allows the temperature to fluctuate a little between day and night as it would in nature and gives my heaters a 4 month break so they last a bit longer. I also adjust the lighting times to be on for longer during the summer but this is more to provide a more natural cycle for the fish then anything else, summertime has longer daylight hours in nature so i mimic this with my tank lighting.

 

[Bignose]

I also adjust the lighting times to be on for longer during the summer but this is more to provide a more natural cycle for the fish then anything else, summertime has longer daylight hours in nature so i mimic this with my tank lighting.

Of course, this isn't a huge deal for most tropical fish as the day/night times do not change nearly as much as in the temperate regions. Some temperate fish only develop their mating instincts and the sexual organs when the photoperiod changes -- but again not really an issue for most tropical fish.