Just wondering the best way/s to keep water temps down?

Read a few posts about keeping temps down with freezing water in a bottle and fans on top to help with temps. No AC or chiller here so looking for some other alternatives before the summer months get here. Worried my HL's will be cooked. Gets to the high 80's inside this house with the light fans and floor fans blowing so I'm trying to get some tips and ideas beforehand. Thankfully for now it's nice and cool so temp is 73* for them.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

I did see some homemade swamp cooler type fans on youtube that seemed simple enough so I'm leaning towards that way...

 

Mine are at 80 and doing great.

 

86 sinnit; Thanks for the info. Your HL's are looking great... Maybe I'll just gradually increase the temp in tank and throw in an extra airstone or run a wave maker at the surface before the summer heat...

 

Evaporative cooling!

Take off the lid and run a small little clip on quiet fan over the surface. You can reduce temps by a lot.

You will have to replace water more often, but the evaporative cooling method is a practical way to cool a tank where it is hot.

Google evaporative cooling for aquariums. You will see lot of folks with small quiet fans cooling their tank.

 

HL's require high dissolved oxygen content so be sure to add plenty of aeration if you're going to keep them in warmer than recommended temps.

 

Thanks Frank the fish guy and GlennO for the tips and info. I did see some simple DIY coolers on Ytube so was going to try and make 1 of those...

 

Theromdynamics is fun!

 

HL's require high dissolved oxygen content so be sure to add plenty of aeration if you're going to keep them in warmer than recommended temps.

Thing is there’s not enough known about these fish. Discus keepers are keeping them with their discus and they are doing fine. I’ve added nothing to my tank. It’s a. 36g with a tidal 55.
The guy at aquarium co-op did a study on them. He also believes these fish are very adaptable! Clean water is the key. Change water weekly at about 50% and they do fine. The discus people are breeding them in their tanks.

 

Thing is there’s not enough known about these fish. Discus keepers are keeping them with their discus and they are doing fine. I’ve added nothing to my tank. It’s a. 36g with a tidal 55.
The guy at aquarium co-op did a study on them. He also believes these fish are very adaptable! Clean water is the key. Change water weekly at about 50% and they do fine. The discus people are breeding them in their tanks.

We do know plenty about their natural habitat. It's great that they are adaptable. Discus keepers at least have the benefit of keeping them in very clean water.

 

We do know plenty about their natural habitat. It's great that they are adaptable. Discus keepers at least have the benefit of keeping them in very clean water.

Yes we do know plenty about their wild habitat. Like we know so much about most fish’s wild habitat. Thing is most fish are so far removed from their wild habitat. Generations of fish are being bred in bare bottom grow out tank that wild is the furthest thing they are. They’ve been bred in so many different types of water thattheir natural habitat may just kill them. Seems to me that’s a big problem with the fish in our hobby. Most info is from the wild side not the bred in captivity side.

 

Maybe I'll just gradually increase the temp in tank and throw in an extra airstone or run a wave maker at the surface before the summer heat...

No need to raise the temp IMO. Just let the tank follow the seasons. Mine are in an unheated tank which goes from 68ish to the low 80s, depending on the time of year. My tank has a lot of aeration. When the temp gets to 80, I put a fan blowing across the tank. It does lower the temp a little.

 

Yes we do know plenty about their wild habitat. Like we know so much about most fish’s wild habitat. Thing is most fish are so far removed from their wild habitat. Generations of fish are being bred in bare bottom grow out tank that wild is the furthest thing they are. They’ve been bred in so many different types of water thattheir natural habitat may just kill them. Seems to me that’s a big problem with the fish in our hobby. Most info is from the wild side not the bred in captivity side.

Are captive bred ones easy to find in your area?

 

Well that’s I guess what we’re being told. Not sure where mine came from. But the guy in the store told me he bought the whole bag. 40 of them all around the same size. So looks like they were bred somewhere and not wild caught. I would think wild caught would have had different sizes. Mine were not full grown.

 

FishDin; Thanks for the info and your experience/ handling of your fishes... My Hillstream loaches have been in the tank for just a few weeks now. So far so good other than being nocturnal... They have been peeking out alittle more from there hideout lately...