# Overheating



## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Besides chillers, how do people keep their tanks cool?

My over the last couple days my biocube has hit temperatures of 30 degrees C. I lost both my cleaner shrimps. The fish and corals seem to be doing fine but I need to get my temperatures down.

The fans on the biocube are on and I don't think the lights are causing my tank to heat up that much. I tried 3 different heaters in case one was faulty and I even tried unplugging all heaters and leaving the tank at room temperature.

My room temperature is 23 degrees C and I just checked the bin I use to age my water in... its at about 28 degrees C without a heater.

Not sure what's going on.


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## Sunstar (Jul 29, 2008)

how big is your bin? 

That might be large enough that the temperature change won't be as noticable. if your room got warm enough for the water to also warm up, then drop, the bin might be still cooling off. 

I know tihs summre I am going to be using an air conditoner to keep my fish cooler. my activities in the summer makes the temperature in the room go nuts.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

I always have an air conditioner in my room during the summer but its not warm enough to have the a/c up.

The bin hasn't had a heater in it for the last 2 days and it still hovers at 28. The tank is still at 29-30.

If I honestly have to buy a chiller to keep the tank from overheating I'm just going to tear the tank down and sell everything off.

A chiller cost more than the entire tank setup... lol.


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

I ended up installing a larger fan in my cube (its a no name cube of some sort lol) I bought it from big als for around 30 bucks or so. 

If you can figure out how to rig up computer fans you could do it for cheaper I would think. I dont know how much powersupplies run for.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Did you remove the old fans and put in the bigger ones or did you install larger ones alongside the old ones?


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

The old ones actually never worked, so I installed one pulling cool air in. It did the job just fine but if it does get hotter (and it will lol) I'll install an out.

I just put the bigger fan in place of the broken one.


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## conix67 (Jul 27, 2008)

I don't have a bio cube, but you'll need a sufficient air flow in enclosed systems like bio cube, as the decent lighting system will generate a large amount of heat which needs to be controlled.

I'm surprised the water temperature in your bin is 28 while your room temp is around 23. They should be the same unless something is heating up water in your bin or your thermometer is inaccurate.

From what I've heard you never want to exceed water temperature of 80F.

When I had 28W PC over my 12G nano, fully open, I was able to keep the water temperature at or below 80F last summer. 

I'll see if I need additional cooling this year with 150W MH over the same tank..


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

I know it's weird that the bin isn't at room temperature either. I've been doing a lot of reading and apparently 84 is the average that some people keep their tanks at. 

I'm on my iPhone right now so I can't copy and paste the link to the article I was reading about yemperatures but I'll do it when I get home.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Here is the article:

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/reef_temperature.html

Apparently, 84F is alright...


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## lloydj (Apr 10, 2009)

*84!*

Hey Brian,

Like our phone conversation.
Check your flow pumps and the other filtration pump. Make sure it is free and clean.
84 f IMO is way to hot.
You would be looking for trouble at that temp.
Warmer the water the more chance of parasites and diseases thriving on your fish.......Not good man.
Try the fan switch like Jess said.
Leave the lid open for a day or two.
Also take a few icecubes in a ziplock and bag flaot them to so the tank gets down to 77-78f
Monitor the tank temp to see how long it takes to creeps back up to 80ish.
For $3 buy a small floating thermometer and double check your temp...Jeez buy two for that price!
I have seen thermometers give wacky readings to.
I bought a new American Marine wireless temp digital box and it reads 86.9 all day
I figured it out with a cheap thermo that it is 8 degrees out!!!!

Hope things work out for you.

L J


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

Wouldn't those temperature fluctuations have a more negative effect on the fish and corals than the steady temperature alone? My tank is sitting at 28 degrees now but I'll see how high it goes during the day.

I have 5 thermometers. 3 digital ones and 2 mercury ones so I know it isn't the thermometers that are going wonky.

Leaving the back lid open helped bring the tank down about 1-1.5C but a lot of water evaporated.

I'll continue to monitor the temperature throughout the day with the lights and fans on and if it rises, I'll assume that they're the culprit and if the temperatures don't rise much, I'll cut off the oceanic pump and see what happens then.


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## ruffyruff (Dec 28, 2008)

hey brian,

Take out your main pump, clean it out, that MAY be your cause, if its restricted, it will cause your pump to work harder (more friction) more heat...

Take out your koralia (altho they are minimal in heat) and try that out, 

If you have an extra maxijet 900, try using that replacing hte existing pump.. if u dont, bigals has an openbox for 20$ @ Scarborough... dont use a 1200 since it runs alot warmer


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## cablemike (Jan 7, 2009)

lighting can cause alot of heat though.. i recently switched from 175w metalhalide single ended to 300watts hqi metal halide and believe it or not my temp dropped 4 degrees.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

So far the tank has been running steady at 27-28 degrees C.

The pump that came with the tank is a maxijet 1200 and I also have a koralia and another small powerhead in there.

Not sure what made the temperature spike but like I said, tank has been steady ever since. Now to wait and see what happens over the next few days when the weather warms up.


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## ruffyruff (Dec 28, 2008)

I would think the heat is caused by external temperatures + running 3 PH...

your koralia would output nearly nothing, but the maxijets do run quite warm =)


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