How well prepared are you for sudden heat?

[doktordoris]

It will die.

 

[paulrust]

All my vivs have automatic high heat cooling fans that are plugged into a UPS that gives me 8 hours of power to start my generator for the AC, furnace, well pump and other emergency circuits. Generator is plugged in all the time ready to go, just have to start it and throw a switch.

 

[nora]

I haven't got my Axies yet. Would "wrapping" the tank with rigid insulation along with the use of frozen water bottles help? The tank itself becomes the insulated cooler.

 

[KennyDB]

From the moment I was crazy about plethodontids I first bought me a winecooler where I can place some tubs...just to be save. Never had to use it but it's there so I have my backup...

 

[AU SalamanderRG]

Wonder how guys from Texas, Southern Florida, and Southern California handle heat...

 

[troutnerd]

All my newts are in the basement of my house..in northern Ontario. Keeping them cool is not a problem,even in the heat of summer. We don't have air conditioning.

 

[gcollin]

I live in the basement so I have no problem. And if something was to happen I would open my window to let cold air in and I would spray my salamanders cage with cold water.

 

[nickjwes]

I had most of mine in the basement which is great but I found that I can keep them at a steady temperature in my room with my cooling method. I use computer fans which is all fine and good but it kinda got a little noisy and annoying. Now I have an internal filter that usually has a spray bar. I took off the spray bar and added tubing that runs outside the tank loops a couple times and drains back into the tank. I have it loop in a small tub inside a Styrofoam cooler which I fill the tub with ice water and change it once or twice daily. It seems to work well but I need a few more loops in my tubing to get more surface area for cooling.

 

[nora]

Has anyone used the aluminized mylar polyester emergency blankets for their tanks? I was thinking that if they are sold to keep body heat in, perhaps they could also keep heat out. Assuming that temp. of water is increased via ambient air on the glass of the tank, one could drape or wrap the tank to minimize this temp. transfer. Does this sound like it has any merits?

 

[Jennewt]

The only way that it would help to insulate the outside of the tank would be if you also had a way to COOL the water inside (ice, fans, chiller, etc). The insulation might make the other cooling methods more effective or long-lasting, but the insulation alone wouldn't do any good.

 

[nora]

Yes, this was to slow water temp. rise, not an active cooling method like chillers, ice,or fans for evaporation. Emergency blankets are inexpensive and can be folded small when not needed.This was just another low tech idea( I thought of it while making potato salad) for weathering some hot spells along with the others that have been mentioned on this thread.:happy:

 

[ntny]

hi folks,

alot of us lose newts during hot summers.

so how do they survive in nature summer time?

ain't is hot out there?

 

[Mark]

hi folks,

alot of us lose newts during hot summers.

so how do they survive in nature summer time?

ain't is hot out there?

Newts and salamanders generally live in micro habitats where the temperature never reaches that of the daytime air temperatures we humans experience. For example, the air temperature on a warm summers day in Europe might be 30C, in the shade of the forest it is probably 25C and on the forest floor under a log covered in leaf litter, in a damp crevice where a salamander lives, it's probably 17C or less. As nocturnal creatures they never get exposed to high daytime temperatures and typically most newts and salamanders will only be active during cool, damp weather. For aquatic animals, still water bodies will normally remain much cooler than air temperature and streams are cooler still.

Their lifestyle means that they're nearly always exposed to cool stable temperatures which gradually change during the seasons. Deaths tend to occur during sudden fluctuations in temperatures (for example, the air con breaks) as the animals do not have the ability to acclimatize quickly.

In captivity it's almost impossible to create these micro climates in a small glass tank. The whole tank simply takes on the ambient temperature of the room. For most species a comfortable human room temperature (20-22C) is close to the top end of their comfort zone, so exposing them to temperatures we would consider warm is a risky business.

 

[David B]

I've found the old frozen bottle trick and something as simple as a large fan have done the trick in the past - having said that we don't get hot summers... only wet ones in Northern England!

David B

 

[Aimee]

During the summer (3 months of 90-110 F weather) I use a combination of frozen water bottles, blowing a fan over the water, and also blowing a fan at the tank glass, which I constantly spray with refrigerated water. The evaporation of the cold water on the tank glass helps a degree or two.

After 4 years of doing this (switching out waterbottles every three hours and spraying the tank even more frequently is quite a bit of work), I've decided to invest in a minifridge that I can keep him in for the entire duration of summer.

In case the power goes out, the refrigerater is still a great bet for several hours after an outage. For outages longer than that, ice and icepacks from the grocery store is my plan B.

 

[Molch]

since I live in the Arctic, I have the opposite problem: I worry that if my power goes out while I'm away, everybody will freeze (although during most normal winter weather it'll take a few days for the house to reach freezing. I have my neighbor check my heat when I'm away).

The record high in my town is around 83 degrees. Temps in the upper 70ies and above may happen for 2, 3 days each summer.

 

[Molch]

Newts and salamanders generally live in micro habitats where the temperature never reaches that of the daytime air temperatures we humans experience. For example, the air temperature on a warm summers day in Europe might be 30C, in the shade of the forest it is probably 25C and on the forest floor under a log covered in leaf litter, in a damp crevice where a salamander lives, it's probably 17C or less.

this is exactly true. Once, when I was a kid, I took a thermometer along when herping. It was a brooding hot July day, air temp over 30 C. I found a fire salamander under a stump, and when I stuck the thermometer down there it came out at 15 C. Go figure! At the time that was a real revelation for me; it taught me the meaning of microclimate. I quickly put the poor chap back down there, so he wouldn't overheat.

 

[dannyyyallenn]

I live in Chicago and we get mixed weather. I keep my aquarium in the basement where it constantly stays 10 degrees cooler than it is outside(unless its winter time and we have the heat on, then it stays about 10 degrees F cooler than our house temp which is around 68 degrees F.). During the winter it can drop down to 55 degrees F. In the summer, the hottest possible climate is 100 degrees F, which is rare. Normally it stays around 80 degrees in which case I could leave my tank as it is(because it would stay at 70 degrees in the basement and that's a fine summer temp for alpines). I keep a fan running over my tank in the summer to evaporate the water and keep it cold, about 70-72 degrees F at the warmest, if it gets up to 90-100 degrees outside and has that great of an affect on my basement temp. If we had a power outage I would hope the tank stays cool long enough for the power to get back up and running but I would use whatever ice we had left in the machine and put in a zip lock bag to keep the water cold. I would proceed in running to the nearest gas station to buy a load of ice to continue the ice switches. It helps to keep the tank in a place that already stays cool naturally.