summer time blues?

[justin case]

So last summer was miserable. How does everbody keep their tanks cool during the hellish months of July and August? I've heard of using frozen bottles of water. Any other tricks that don't involve buying a $300 or more chiller? Or do we just hope this year wont be as hot as last year? If thought about running some tubing into a little form fridge I've got and pumping it through a coil.

 

[Cory]

Fans work great for evaporative cooling.

 

[justin case]

Even when it's like 99 degrees in my house? I wouldn't think a fan would pull that much heat out. I'm especially worried about my gold fish. But they will be outside by then I hope. How much evaporation can I look forward to it we have another summer like last year?

 

[Cory]

You need to look into evaporative cooling. When you blow a fan across water, the evaporation chemical reaction causes heat loss from the water. Like in my fish store, when I have a fan on a tank it'll lower the water temp by 10 degrees roughly.

Something like this is made to do it, but any fan will work. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0049RNVXI/?tag=wafishbox-20

 

[lloyd378]

My house tanks have a constant temp year round 70-72 degrees in the house but my two tanks in the garage get a bit warm, so I typically do cold water changes in the am ( just drain some water out to water the vegetable garden and fill it back up with cold tap water.....this way I'm killing two birds with one stone. I roughly do ten to fifteen gallons out of the big tank and five gallons out of the 35g

 

[justin case]

I understand how evap cooling works. I just didn't think it could keep up in 90°+ days. I suppose as long as the temp swings are not super fast the fish will adapt right? Sorry for the dumb questions. I'm really not as new as it sounds. But I have been out of the hobby for a few years and I don't remember it getting as hot for as long as it did last year...