Question: Cooling an Axie Tank

[Cruor]

Hiya,

I live in England and have never had any trouble cooling my Axie, Jo before whilst I've lived in several houses (not very energy efficient) in Bath whilst at Uni, but now I'm moving on to Norwich Research Park, with accommodation that does not allow tanks, she's having to go home to parents (25 mins from Norwich) where I can still take care of her. The problem is my parents place, is stupidly warm all the time, even with no heating at all. So I need to consider cooling options since she's always above the 20C mark - not initially a problem - but on a mildly warm day reaches 24C and over and it gets stupidly hot when we have weather like the UK has had in my region for the past couple of days, and the house gets the same way every year.

I've considered AC for the entire room but units are upwards of 200 pounds in DIY stores here. A while ago I bought a small peltier powered mini fridge to make a cooler, but it didn't cool water very well with plastic tubing, presumably some other tubing like aluminium might work better, providing it's not harmful to the animal, I think copper is a no no. I saw the ice probe advertised and wondered if the peltier does a similar thing and gets cold, if it would be enough just to dismantle the fridge and have that cooling plate of the peltier contacting the side of the tank since I've seen some on you-tube get pretty icy.

Does anyone have any advice for DIYing a solution? I'd rather use what I have, than go out and buy something new for several hundred pounds - although if I have to then I shall.

Thanks,
Ben.

 

[frogman]

Just drain the water about halfway and refill with cold water. Drain about a gallon or two and dump a bucket of ice cubes in it. Or get a chiller. Any of these will work. You could always check here Caudata Culture Articles - Cooling

 

[Mr Poseidon]

allowing for evap will help so adding a bubblier and a fan (or two!) but that will only drop the temp a degree or so (ovi the dryer the environment the more evap and the more the temp will drop).

i found that floating bottles and ice gives way to large temp flux which unless your able to monitor the ice/temp situation full time its risky.

i know a chiller can be expensive i bought mine for 400 US dollars so going back to the mini fridge might be the best choice!

 

[Cruor]

Thanks,

My father is an engineer so I'm sure when if we look at the mini-fridge we can think of something. I have a few ideas, for example a coil inside it the tank water flow through - most probably need aquarium grade stainless steel. As water exits the cannister I have it can go through the coil and return to the tank. Turning the inside into some kind of sump that icepacks can be put in is another possibility. So it would be like the temporary ice box design I've seen before, but with the option of turning on the peltier.

 

[Mr Poseidon]

you can buy a cheap pump online, i bought mine for less than 20 US dollars. Then thorectically you could run some sort of tubing into the fridge ( i might even make out let and in let ports but thats up to you) then lots and lots of collis in the fridge. I would be intrsted to know if in theory you had a bucket inside the mini fridge filled with water than ran the tubing through that so that it was cooled by cold water as opposed to the ambient air in the fridge. i would def try to get the frezzer compartment open so that it chilled the whole fridge more. but thats my opinion!

 

[Cruor]

Would having it setup so as the filter sat inside the mini-fridge help? I'm not sure on this as I don't want to kill any biological cultures I have in there. But it would mean no additional pumps and the like.

 

[Mr Poseidon]

well if the filter emits heat, it would be counter intuitive to put a heat emitting device in a cooling one, although if the pump had enough force to pump water through the "cooling agent" and through the filter then you would only need one pump and be able to go from there.

 

[HodgeaPodge]

I'm cheap so in the summer when it gets REALLY hot (which it has been doing a lot lately) I freeze water bottles (filled completely with water) and stick them in. In a 7 gal tank it lowers the temp 4-5 degrees by the time it has thawed out.

 

[Mr Poseidon]

I'm cheap so in the summer when it gets REALLY hot (which it has been doing a lot lately) I freeze water bottles (filled completely with water) and stick them in. In a 7 gal tank it lowers the temp 4-5 degrees by the time it has thawed out.

while this was already suggested, i thought i might add on that this is a good option only if you can monitor the water closely 4-5 degrees is a big drop or gain, and if every few hours the tank is gaining and losing that much heat it will stress out your axis. if you have the ability to keep the temp realitivly level by say allowing it to thaw out half way and then wating a few min (maybe up to 20? i dont know it would take experimentation) then adding a bottel again. you might be able to prevent the temp swings

also, it is a good idea to use tank water in this application beacuse if for some reason the bottle breaks open you wont risk killing your axis due to chlorine and what not

Side note: HodgeaPodge please dont take this the wrong way, but a 7 gallon tank is a little small for an axolotl. While yes this is constantly debated and research labs keep their axis in only 1 gallon of water they also provide daily water changes. the generally accepted rule of thumb is 10 gallons or a 1 ft by 1ft square area of floor

 

[HodgeaPodge]

while this was already suggested, i thought i might add on that this is a good option only if you can monitor the water closely 4-5 degrees is a big drop or gain, and if every few hours the tank is gaining and losing that much heat it will stress out your axis. if you have the ability to keep the temp realitivly level by say allowing it to thaw out half way and then wating a few min (maybe up to 20? i dont know it would take experimentation) then adding a bottel again. you might be able to prevent the temp swings

also, it is a good idea to use tank water in this application beacuse if for some reason the bottle breaks open you wont risk killing your axis due to chlorine and what not

Side note: HodgeaPodge please dont take this the wrong way, but a 7 gallon tank is a little small for an axolotl. While yes this is constantly debated and research labs keep their axis in only 1 gallon of water they also provide daily water changes. the generally accepted rule of thumb is 10 gallons or a 1 ft by 1ft square area of floor

The bottle thaws within about an hour or two, so the temp drops slow enough. I read through the other posts, but I guess I didn't look close enough to see this was already discussed.

 

[Mr Poseidon]

i wasnt trying to be rude, i wouldnt of said anything if the thought "oh i wonder if they considered using treated water for this application" hahaha my brain works funny and thats what came out!

but the goal should be to keep the tank temp realitivly constance +/- 2-3 degrees F every 12 hours or so...

I attempted to do the bottle solution but it really does take constant monitoring to keep the temp swing to a minimum. and when i was working 70+ hrs as well as taking a class i did not have the time/energy to do thus.