Question: Water cooling without breaking the bank

[xscarymsmaryx]

My tank is finally cycled, but now I see the temperature rising and rising - and it isn't even the height of summer yet!

I can't afford the hundreds of pounds I'm seeing coolers going for, and I'm not at home all day to get a cooling bottle/water relay on the go... So I'm in pretty desperate need of suggestions! My space is also quite limited.

What solutions have you guys come up with? My water's getting up to 21°C already, and I know it'll be pushing even higher once summer starts properly if I don't get it under control.

 

[cabbysarus]

We just got a standing water cooler (like for in an office) and have hoses leading from the tank with a little pump into the top of the bottle on the cooler. Then from the nozzle of the cooler back into the tank via more hose. It's not terribly pleasing to the eye just yet, but it works and I made it for under $60 ^.^

 

[michael]

a fan blowing over the top of the tank will cool it some by evaporative cooling.

 

[Skudo09]

Clip on fans or face desk fans over the water surface. You could also wrap wet towels around the outside of the tank or insulate the tank (I have one of those alluminium type car windscreen sun shades around the outside of the tank).

What type of filter and lighting do you have? If you have a solid lid, replace it with a mesh lid.

 

[xscarymsmaryx]

Clip on fans or face desk fans over the water surface. You could also wrap wet towels around the outside of the tank or insulate the tank (I have one of those alluminium type car windscreen sun shades around the outside of the tank).

What type of filter and lighting do you have? If you have a solid lid, replace it with a mesh lid.

There's no lighting in the tank, and we are using a Eheim Pickup 45 filter. I've been thinking of getting some mesh, so I will do that.

I read somewhere that fans wouldn't reduce the temperature enough, how many degrees of cooling have people experienced when using them?

 

[Skudo09]

I have clip on fans that I bought from Guppies online. They seem to work surprisingly well here even in the hot summer. They are not as good as chillers by far and in summer and are not quite enough on their own to keep the temperature ideal in summer but I have found they can drop the temperature almost by 10degrees Celsius. They do struggle though when the hot summer days reach above 30degrees Celsius and won't drop the temp quite as much but still will drop the temperature by over 5degrees Celsius and I would still recommend them used in conjunction with other methods. On the really hot days when the fans are not enough i wrap wet towels around the sides of the tank.

 

[seagull]

i fill a few sandwhich bags with water and freeze them
then i float them in the tank, replacing when they thaw

 

[numpty]

I read somewhere that fans wouldn't reduce the temperature enough, how many degrees of cooling have people experienced when using them?

It depends on how humid your conditions are. At times I get absolutely no temperature drop with my USB fan, as the ambient humidity is over 90%. At other times, when the humidity is lower, I can get about 3 degrees or more. Bigger fans will give bigger drops, of course.

Some ideas here: Caudata Culture Articles - Cooling

 

[TheAxolotlMan]

I've heard people that have used laptop cooling pads to cool there tanks pretty well and they aren't very expensive so that's something to look at.