Regulating The Temperature In This Heat?!

[twiki]

The tank just seems to be getting warmer and warmer with the last few days of hot weather - and it's now out of the ideal zone. The heater is unplugged so it's just the fact the room temperature has risen. Is there any way of keeping a tank cool?

I dare say the 2 light strips give out a bit of heat, so I can turn them off but my plants might not like it. I'm already keeping the sun out of the room by leaving the curtains drawn all day...

Any other ideas?!

 

[youngfisher]

Have you tried a fan?

 

[twiki]

Have you tried a fan?

Nope!

Not sure that would really help though? How does a fan cool the water?

 

[waterdrop]

Have you tried a fan?

Yeah, a nice big fan on a floor stand and set to low but running all the time is a great way to cool a tank I think...

 

[Curiosity101]

Yeah, a nice big fan on a floor stand and set to low but running all the time is a great way to cool a tank I think...

How do you figure? The only reason a fan makes us cooler is because it blows away the the humid layer of air that is created as we sweat...This then makes it easier for us to loose heat in this way.
They only way it would work for a tank would be if you took the lid off and had the fan blowing across the surface of the water. This would remove the humid layer created as the water evaporated, speeding up the evaporation process and therefore lowering the temperature.

 

[Curiosity101]

You'd need to physically lower the temperature of the room somehow, chances are the air temp outside is lower than that inside so opening windows would help.

If not then regular water changes with cooler water is your only option. But I'm almost certain this is pretty risky as too fast a temp change can cause shock to the fish.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, my assumption is that the access to the surface would not be so tight that there wouldn't be increased turnover of air across the water surface as a result of increased air movement around the tank by the fan, just leading to a small amount of cooling.

In a sealed room that's too hot, the fan might not help much but I guess there's also the assumption that maybe in some situations there might be cooler air from a door or windows that the fan could stir through the room.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[twiki]

Windows open during the day is a no go I'm afraid - I did take off the lip flaps this morning though in the hope that this might help a little.

Small regular changes might work though. Fish seem OK at the moment with the heat but if it gets much hotter they might not like it too much!

I'll try than fan - nothing to lose - but not wholly convinced!

Hopefully a bit of all the suggestions might just bring the temp down enough.

 

[saltynay]

I add ice cubes, my betta plays with them and pushes them along the surface of the tank. I also lower the heater one or two degrees the night before so that the tank warms up naturally and reaches optimum rather then turning off the heater when its already too hot.

 

[oswoldy]

A fan will work, I used one the other day and got my tank down from 29.9 to 25.6 in 3 hours. Just aimed it at the water surface on static not rotate.

Mike

 

[OldMan47]

A fan across the water surface will cause water in the tank to evaporate. The moisture that comes off the water is at 212 F average temperature, boiling temperature at standard atmospheric pressure, so the water left behind has a lower energy content than the water had before the evaporation took place. I know you will never be able to measure 212 F in the tank but not all molecules in the water have the same energy level. It is the ones at the hot end of things that have enough energy to actually break free of the liquid. Those "hot" molecules carry away the heat with them Leaving behind the less energetic, cooler, molecules.

 

[jonp]

Many of my customers at work use fans to make their kilns cool faster after firing pottery, the airflow passing the sides of the kilns cools the sides and this process draws more heat from the inside to the outside. This has been proven to reduce cooling time from 16 hrs to around 12 for a kiln coming down from 1020C.......

although having thought about this a bit more I guess the kilns are coming down from way above room temp to match it, not at a similar temp (I.E. within 10/15 degrees) to start with.