water too hot!!

Thats definitely too warm IMO the upper limit for most cichlids is around 84 for an extended period. Is it in direct sunlight? That might be a source of heat. A water cooler would do the trick but they are expensive. It may be cheaper to put in a room air conditioner than get a water cooler, then you and the fish can be cool

you know that is what i would think but i have some goldfish and a talapia which are ok in their respective tanks......the whole of the phillipines must have this problem.....can all tropical fish owners here be sporting coolers on their aquariums??

maybe i should leave the tank for a few days and see if it comes down a bit.

surely it must be cheaper to cool the aqurium than the whole room??

During the salt and heat treatment in tanks, the temp goes to near 90F, and fish seem to be doing fine. I don't know the longer term affects of higher temp for fish, but I have found most fish to be doing fine in the warm water provided there is enough O2 in the water.

My discus tank is anywhere from 86 to 90 and I have betta and other fish that are not supposed to be kept in the higher temp, but do fine. Some I have kept for over a year without any ill affects. So, you could try out some of the fish you want to keep and see how they do. I am sure your LFS and other local hobbists can tell you what they do. There are aquarium chillers in the market, but they are for the SW tanks. Good luck!

zazz said:

so what are my options....some kind of tank cooler ...or can fish survive that....i mean africa is on the equator!!

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I guess you have an idea on how BIG Africa actually is Lake Malawi is 26 degrees C. Don't know what fish you keep, but if you have africans indeed you should consider some sort of cooler.

One major concern is the level of dissolved oxygen in the water. Water's ability to hold oxygen goes down as the temperature goes up. You may want to at least increase aeration and surface agitation while you consider your options.

I read an article on practicalfishkeeping recently about fishkeepers in singapore, and this is actually a big problem for them. Most of them do have chillers, or at least AC'd rooms for their fishtanks. Heaters are almost unheard of.

You will probably need a chiller or at least a DIY chiller. Chillers are not cheap so here is a link to aDIR chiller. Unless you can afford a ready-made chiller. I cannot afford one nor do I really need one but I have checked into them a bit for a possible reef tank and was looking on how to make one.

Good luck. :thumb:

i have been doing a bit of googeling.....now i think this current ambient temp is not all year round....so i just have to deal with it as and when which isnt that often.

so the order of the day is ice packs.....drag it down to 30 and any fish should be ok....keep the water well areated by raisng the spary bar and things should be fine.

for the rest of the year it probably hovers under 30 so i should be out of the danger zone...

seems like a plan ..maybe when i am flush for cash ill pony up a chiller!!

thanks for the input guys...very appreciated

I've also read about people placing their canister filter in a bucket and surrounding it with ice in order to passively cool the water that flows through the canister. Hmmmmmm, makes me wonder if you could put your canister filter in a small cheap bar refrigerator and have a cheap alternative to a chiller.

kingdave said:

I've also read about people placing their canister filter in a bucket and surrounding it with ice in order to passively cool the water that flows through the canister. Hmmmmmm, makes me wonder if you could put your canister filter in a small cheap bar refrigerator and have a cheap alternative to a chiller.

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That's a phenomenal idea. :thumb: Let me build on it. Rather than just placing the canister in there, what about putting several feet of coiled up hose in there in a bucket of water. The canister itself would insulate it quite a bit and only the water traveling on the outside of the filter would be chilled some but if you put feet of hose in there it would work very much like a chiller.

kingdave said:

Hmmmmmm, makes me wonder if you could put your canister filter in a small cheap bar refrigerator and have a cheap alternative to a chiller.

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Why not use a couple of meters coiled tubing in that fridge and a small pump. I'd rather not mess with my canister and you would be much more flexible with tubes and power leads...

trigger said:

kingdave said:

Hmmmmmm, makes me wonder if you could put your canister filter in a small cheap bar refrigerator and have a cheap alternative to a chiller.

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Why not use a couple of meters coiled tubing in that fridge and a small pump. I'd rather not mess with my canister and you would be much more flexible with tubes and power leads...

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Ok, sounds good. Now we need to come up with a way to control the amount of water that flows through our "refrig-a-chiller" based on some kind of thermostat. Perhaps one of us should get started on a prototype. My tank is in the cool basement, so I'm not going to need it though.

kingdave said:

Ok, sounds good. Now we need to come up with a way to control the amount of water that flows through our "refrig-a-chiller" based on some kind of thermostat. Perhaps one of us should get started on a prototype. My tank is in the cool basement, so I'm not going to need it though.

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There are seperate thermostats, you could just hook up the pump to it with a reverse relais. Normally the power goes off when the temp goes above the set temp. With a reverse relay it will switch the power on then. Mmmm. Think I will start looking for a smal fridge... I have a pump lying around, and I have a temperature control unit that will allow me to switch the pump on when the temp rises...