Safely Lower Water Temperature?

I've had a tough time starting this new tank. First attempt resulted in an ick massacre. Tank's been dormant for three weeks with nerite snails, and adding some fish food to cycle, and yesterday my parameters were:

ph: 7.6
ammonia: 0 ppm
NO2: 0 ppm
NO3: 0 ppm

Only I didn't check the temp...which was 84, because we've been waiting on AC installation for two weeks and its been hot.

However, the fam has been pressuring me to get fish in there...so we went and got our bottom feeders, four corys and a bristlenose pleco.

So we put the window unit in and set it at 68 (it's in the adjacent room so it won't get 68 in the room where the fish are).

Unfortunately this morning it was only down to around 80/81. We had the timer set so the AC would turn off at 5 am, so maybe we should've left it running all night?

My question:
Is there anything I can safely do (other than bringing down the ambient temp of the room) to lower the water temperature?

 

I've had a tough time starting this new tank. First attempt resulted in an ick massacre. Tank's been dormant for three weeks with nerite snails, and adding some fish food to cycle, and yesterday my parameters were:

ph: 7.6
ammonia: 0 ppm
NO2: 0 ppm
NO3: 0 ppm

Only I didn't check the temp...which was 84, because we've been waiting on AC installation for two weeks and its been hot.

However, the fam has been pressuring me to get fish in there...so we went and got our bottom feeders, four corys and a bristlenose pleco.

So we put the window unit in and set it at 68 (it's in the adjacent room so it won't get 68 in the room where the fish are).

Unfortunately this morning it was only down to around 80/81. We had the timer set so the AC would turn off at 5 am, so maybe we should've left it running all night?

My question:
Is there anything I can safely do (other than bringing down the ambient temp of the room) to lower the water temperature?

HI Zeeweeling,

Yes you can. Evaporation chills water in the same way human sweat does. With an open top and some fans, you could get it down a bit. You can also get an aquarium chiller, but they are somewhat expensive.

I must add: I don't have personal experience in neither fans nor a chiller.. But those are the 2 options I know about.

Good luck!

Also, I must add, your low nitrate makes me suspicious that maybe your cycle isn't really done..

 

Thank you! I will try opening it up and a fan. I'm suspicious, too...I'll be testing the water everyday and I've got buckets and Safe on-hand.

 

Let me know how it goes, I'm curious myself how much the temp drops. You will need to top off more often because of the increased evaporation.
Have a great sunday.

 

My friend keeps an axolotl and they require lower temps. To get her tank a few degrees lower than her already cold room she's got a small (maybe 4" in diameter) clip on fan pointed right across the top of her water. Works great to get the temp to where she needs it but it does cause a lot of evaporation so you'll have to do top offs in between weekly water changes.

 

zeeweeling , keep it open use fan, but you must need more air bubbler for more air,and it will increase surface agitation , so the fan can blow away the heat and toxic gases , it is the first thing you should do, result will impress you for sure.
if there is any plants in the tank then add 2 or 3 more

 

gmwJOY,

Thanks for the suggestion! I do have two airstones in and have the filter on high intake and the water level down a bit...I don't have live plants.

 

gmwJOY,

Thanks for the suggestion! I do have two airstones in and have the filter on high intake and the water level down a bit...I don't have live plants.[/Q

dear friend, what you have you have , but what I told is to add one or 2 more.
and add plants only if you think it's possible....
happy fish keeping

 

For a low-tech option, you can freeze water bottles and float them in your tank. I would fix them over a bubble wand or, even better, in front of the filter outlet for good circulation. I would use smaller bottle sizes in order to better control the rate of cooling.

 

Temp is down around 78 now just circulating cool air with the top off...fish are active, playing and eating so far. We'll see how it goes through tomorrow. Thanks for all the suggestions!

 

For a low-tech option, you can freeze water bottles and float them in your tank. I would fix them over a bubble wand or, even better, in front of the filter outlet for good circulation. I would use smaller bottle sizes in order to better control the rate of cooling.

improving ??? it will improve much more if you add more aeration/bubbler my friend

 

It’s holding at 74 and the central air is going in today fish are active and eating.

 

I was facing the same problem a couple weeks ago. I have an old home and the wiring won't support an AC in the room I put my aquarium in. When I set the aquarium up in March, I didn't think about the high summertime temps this room experiences, and the water temps were swinging from 78° in the mornings to 84° in the afternoons.

I had a glass top and simply removing that dropped the temps by 2°. I rigged up a mount for a 120mm computer fan to blow across the water and that got the temps back into the high 70's. I've set it on a timer so that it turns on around noon and runs for 8 hours and the daytime water temps haven't gone over 78°.

I was really surprised by how well it works. As others mentioned, the only problem is constant top-offs due to the faster evaporation, but that's a small price to pay for happy fish.

 

I was facing the same problem a couple weeks ago. I have an old home and the wiring won't support an AC in the room I put my aquarium in. When I set the aquarium up in March, I didn't think about the high summertime temps this room experiences, and the water temps were swinging from 78° in the mornings to 84° in the afternoons.

I had a glass top and simply removing that dropped the temps by 2°. I rigged up a mount for a 120mm computer fan to blow across the water and that got the temps back into the high 70's. I've set it on a timer so that it turns on around noon and runs for 8 hours and the daytime water temps haven't gone over 78°.

I was really surprised by how well it works. As others mentioned, the only problem is constant top-offs due to the faster evaporation, but that's a small price to pay for happy fish.

That’s a super creative solution, thanks for sharing! We’re steady at 74 now with the top half open and the ac on, but we also have an old/leaky house particularly in our front room where the tank is. I’ll keep this in mind in case we have temp troubles again!