Got to hot

[must tang]

I've been at this for about 9 months.....lots of trial and error...some heartbreak as beautiful fish parished...but things had been recently running well until...it got really hot outside last week and my temp. inside the tank went to 85 degrees! I have a fan running under the lights and I turned the lights off but it didn't help. Three days later I lost my Copper band butterfly who had been doing really well. Don't know if that was the reason. Any suggestions on keeping the temp. of the water down where it should be on hot days?

 

[dad]

i replace my evaporated water with destilled water that i keep in the ice box.
you can also take ziplock bags and fill the with tap water and freeze them.just add to tank until they thaw out then refreeze.
i'm sure there alot of ways. but this seems to work for me right now.
btw. do not cool off too fast!

 

[must tang]

Thank-you...good idea and so simple. This is my first time posting any kind of question on one of these discussion boards. It's nice to know there is friendly help out there. Thanks.

 

[twoods71]

Welcome to the board Must Tang !!!
I had the same problem and my temp got up to 86. What I did was to leave the hood up on my tank. The evaporation rate increases but the temp now stays down with max at around 82.
BTW this is a great place to ask questions, just fire away, someone will have an answer for you.

 

[mantis]

Copperbanded butterfly is a very difficult fish to keep, they die for just about anything. How about putting a fan directly over the sump and cooling that open water. I heard that just cooling the heat under lights might help a little, but cooling open water like the surface water without the cover is better.

 

[mantis]

Something else, I don't know how big your tank is, but you could "for the hot months" replace your glass top with a plexy glass top you can have cut at the local glass shop and drill some 1-2" holes spaced out, then you could keep a top and cool the surface to.

 

[dugan]

MT, I am in MA too... It's tough with our weather here... if I were someplace warm I would just buy a chiller and be done with it. But since we'd only use it a few days a year, really, it doesn't seem worth it.
What I do is to open the hood and set a fan up to blow over the top of the tank. As someone else mentioned, it causes the water to evaporate faster, but does solve the problem.
Katie