Dealing with summer heat

[TJ]

Temperatures are rising here in Tokyo. The room where this tank is situated has reached 31 C when the air conditioner is not turned on, but so far the water temperature has not exceeded 27 C.

In addition to rotating frozen 2-liter bottles of water several times a day, I've been using a clip-on fan that blows across a wide surface area.

When the above pics were taken, the room temperature was 28 C and the water temperature was 24 C where the thermometer is situated. Quite tolerable for Cynops ensicauda, but still, the newts like to hang out in the cooler area directly under the fan

All my other salamanders and newts are in a specially built room in which the room temperature is maintained at a constant 23 C.

What are others doing to keep their animals cool?

 

[jennifer]

Although cooler, I worry a bit that your newts are at risk of electocution.

People do get killed by appliances falling into water, so this looks a bit dangerous, perhaps for you as well as the newts.

Like you Tim, I only keep fairly heat-tolerant newts in the part of the house that gets hot. I've measured a highest temperature in my T. verrucosus tank of 80F (27C). Fortunately, it doesn't stay that hot for long, and they don't seem to mind.

 

[ira]

keeping them in my parents basement while i move to a place with central AC. all my tanks stay ~70 F.

tim, how big is that c.e. tank and how many animals do you have in it?

 

[TJ]

Jen, I agree with you that it's too much of a risk to take. Also, I wouldn't want others to imitate it and get themselves electrocuted!

I had thought it would be alright since the clip is strong and both grips are rubber padded -- and I'd planned to wire the fan in place for extra safety, while tightening the cord and lowering the water level.

After some experimentation, however, I see that I can get a good breeze going across the water from a safer distance, with the fan fixed outside the tank and set to high instead of low as it was before.

Here it is now, though I'll be devising some safeguards. Thanks

Ira, this tank in my living room is 150 cm long, 60 cm high and 60 cm deep, and accommodates 20-some newts.

I wish I too had a nice cool basement, but my newt room downstairs is specially insulated with no windows except for a sliding door, and the inverter air conditioner in there runs 24 hours a day.

 

[mark]

I'm using the cool bag blocks in my Ambystomid enclosures, changing them once in the morning and again in the evening. It's a bit of a pain but we don't have many really hot days in the UK. It's currently touching 30 C outdoors but the tanks with block stay at around 20 C. My newt tanks get to around 25 C but the inhabitants are quite heat tolerant.

No-one (I know) has air con in their home in the UK... unless you consider opening the window as air con

 

[john]

My guys are all in the basement at <65°F.

 

[william]

the room mine are in is pushing 25 degrees C while the cages themselves are kept a few degrees cooler by extra spraying.

 

[pin-pin]

I, too, have been worrying about my T. marmoratus since I switched the tank to a glass tank. (They had previously lived in a cooler, which had excellent insulation abilities. I'm debating switching them back for the summer.)

I usually add the 2 bottles of water and so far it has worked. This summer in California has been uncommonly cool as well, so it helps.

 

[jeff]

Yes, we've been blessed with the first half of this season here in California. I just hope it doesn't come back and bite us in the rear for the rest of the summer. It's already, after a weekend of mid-80s, supposed to hit triple digits every day this week here in Sacramento, which is no good. Does anybody have a walk-in freezer they can spare?

 

[kelly]

Hi, I'm pretty new to all this. I've only had my newt for a year and last summer wasn't as hot as this. How are you keeping your tanks cool? I heard some mention bottles of frozen water but I don't know if your standing the bottles next to or in the tanks or what. Can someone enlighten me?

 

[janice]

Kelly, you float bottles of frozen water in the tank. I did try this earlier this year but found that the temperature cooled only for a while.

I copied the idea from http://www.caudata.org/forum/cgi-bin/show.cgi?tpc=8&post=53716#POST53716.
but did not use the frame idea. Instead the CPU fans are sitting on top of the tank screen. I don't think there is any way there could be an electrical accident really. Also note that the fans and tank are directly below the air conditioner so hopefully it is the cold air that is being blown downwards.

 

[kelly]

Thanks hun, just wanted to be sure before I tried anything.

 

[jeff]

I was considering buying a used bar fridge, drilling 2 holes, and running a a water line through the filter so the water goes through the cold air. or an air pump in the fridge itself that goes through the tank. Anyone tried this before? It was so hot last week I almost tried it with ours.

 

[john]

Chilled water would work better than just the fridge air. Run the line through a small tank in the fridge and you can get more cooling without having to run a lot of tubing through the fridge. If you can transition your PET tubing to copper before going into the fridge that would also help to get a colder chiller outlet temp.

 

[jeff]

Thanks, that sounds like it would be worth a try. I wish I had a house, I came up on a cheap used fridge unit, the kind that have the clear doors and shelves, that would be used in small resturants. But I would have no space for it, but that would be cool to put tanks in there and have it on the lowest possible setting.

(Message edited by newtsrfun on August 01, 2005)

 

[ammar]

umm maybe it just me but cence u put the fan in cant they easily escape through all that space

 

[joan]

Only if you have animals capable of climbing.