# High water temperatures during the summer?



## ohmyfish (Feb 20, 2010)

Hey gang. I've noticed that my tank is at 82 F and it has me worried. My heater is set at 76 F but that is not the problem. When everything is turned off, the water temperature stays at 82 F so I think the humid atmosphere is probably causing these high temperatures. 

My question is, should I be concerned? What will happen in the summer? How warm do your aquariums get during hot summer days? What can I do to lower the temperature? My house isn't even that humid.


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## Violie (Feb 27, 2010)

That's what am worried about as well, my room, where I have the tanks set up, gets the hottest in the house because it's in the roof and has a skylight. My best guess is just keep circulating air with a fan?


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## Hitch (Apr 26, 2009)

whats your room temp? if your room temp is at 82F also, then yes, the tank even without a heater will remain as 82. But if the room temp is less, then the temp should equilibrate in 12-24 hours. 

either way...whether or not you are worried will depend on the fish and plants in that tank and their temp requirements. 

All of my tanks are at a constant 84-86F despite my roomtemp of 22C.


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## bae (May 11, 2007)

The temp settings marked on heaters are not at all reliable. Turn the heater down, regardless of what the markings say, and see if that gets your temp down. Most fish do better at lower temps, and the water can hold more oxygen.

You might check your thermometer too, since they can also be unreliable.

To help prevent overheating your tank in summer, don't run the lights during the hottest part of the day. Fans can help a little, especially if they encourage evaporation by passing air over the water surface, or if they bring in cooler air from outside the room. 

There are a number of tactics to keep your house cooler without air conditioning, and using these help too. E.g. close the windows and the blinds before the day warms up, then open the windows in the evening when it cools down. 

Humidity doesn't really affect temperature, it just makes sweat-cooled animals like us feel hotter. For your fish, humidity has essentially no effect.


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## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

Last week it was literally 30 degrees in my apartment -- I can't control the heat except by opening the windows, and I'm very allergic to the spores that were in the air prior to the rain, so they windows were closed.

When the tank gets to more than 28 degrees, I put ice cubes in.


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## Darkside (Sep 14, 2009)

I keep the majority of my setups between 80F and 83F. It all depends on the type of fish that you're keeping.


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## AquariAM (Jan 28, 2010)

I second the innacurate heater argument. A lot of heaters are off by about 2 degrees F on the dial. Some brands as much as ten, though at that point I scream 'defective'


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## ohmyfish (Feb 20, 2010)

Thanks for the replies and great advice. I have lowered my heater to 76 F but the temperature fell only one degree to 81 F. My 'Stealth Pro' heater cannot go lower than 75 F. Definitely, I'll keep an eye on the temperature. Perhaps the thermometer is off. I've noticed in the stores that all the thermometers differ by one, two or even three degrees. Hee hee!


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## AquariAM (Jan 28, 2010)

What kind of thermometer you using?

I use a digital cheapo (bout $12) on all tanks. In some I also use a normal red alcohol thermometer as a backup and to double check.

I have found the entire visitherm/stealth line to be extremely unpredictable in terms of the setting on the heater lining up with the reading on the thermometer. I find 'Jager' heaters are usually most accurate, usually within 1F and never more than 2F. I like these heaters. I found there to be a bit of a quality issue when they came under the Eheim umbrella but it seems to have worked itself out, and at the same price as competing heaters, there's no reason not to go for the superior temp accuracy of a Jager. I despise the bright blue temperature ring... but I can live with it.

I would suggest getting another thermometer. I would also suggest if that thermometer agrees with your old one, just turning the heater off, and seeing if your temperature goes down. If it does, get a different heater.

If your heater is indeed working properly, and is set to the mid 70s, it shouldn't be turning on anyways-- something else would be keeping the temp up.

Honestly at this point I believe that you either have a faulty thermometer, a faulty heater, or both. Otherwise you'd be really really hot in that room.


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## AquaNeko (Jul 26, 2009)

Just a thought here for the OP.

http://lifehacker.com/5335024/how-to-build-a-diy-dorm+legal-ac

Do a modified version of this.

Get a fan, a cheap pond pump ~85-100gph is good, use the smallest adaptor on the pond pump, attach hose to said pond pump adaptor (likely need to buy some cheap tubing at HomeD), ziptie to the fan (larger the fan the better), put fan on a timer during hot parts of the day. Best to get a fan with more then one mode.

I'm thinking if you got a 3 speed fan use speed 1 or 2 and check your recorded records at home the times when it gets that hot and set the timer for those times for the fan to turn on. May as well put the pump and fan on the same timer. I'm sure if you stuck returning plastic tube into say a thin PVC pipe that is capped off with holes drilled you could defuse the water or also make that also work double time for you by having a reverse sponge filter. Will look fugly but IMHO practical and offer you more biofiltering. Not sure if they sell 1" black PVC pipe for matching/concealing.



bae said:


> The temp settings marked on heaters are not at all reliable. Turn the heater down, regardless of what the markings say, and see if that gets your temp down. Most fish do better at lower temps, and the water can hold more oxygen.
> 
> You might check your thermometer too, since they can also be unreliable.
> 
> ...


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## dl88dl (Mar 8, 2010)

characinfan said:


> Last week it was literally 30 degrees in my apartment -- I can't control the heat except by opening the windows, and I'm very allergic to the spores that were in the air prior to the rain, so they windows were closed.
> 
> When the tank gets to more than 28 degrees, I put ice cubes in.


Putting ice cubes in the tank to cool off is a bad thing unless you have a huge tank. The temperature drops too fast and well stress out the fishy.


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## AquariAM (Jan 28, 2010)

dl88dl said:


> Putting ice cubes in the tank to cool off is a bad thing unless you have a huge tank. The temperature drops too fast and well stress out the fishy.


It stands to reason that you can use less ice cubes for less water volume


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## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

AquariAM said:


> It stands to reason that you can use less ice cubes for less water volume


Yup. One or two will do it for a 55-gallon. You add them very slowly -- one at a time, over a period of hours, as necessary.


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## tebore (Jan 3, 2010)

AquaNeko said:


> Just a thought here for the OP.
> 
> http://lifehacker.com/5335024/how-to-build-a-diy-dorm+legal-ac
> 
> ...


You could modify that idea and just add a pelter to the setup to lower temps. It'd be easiest on a canister setup. Pelt the canister to cool the water. Run a second loop to a car heater core outside cooled by a 120mm computer fan you can set it up to be powered from the same computer power supply. Then it can be a completely sealed system and you get temperature control via adding a temp controller.


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