High Temps, Small Tank

[rbraunberger]

Hello Everyone,

I have a 40 gal tank I am setting up. Over the past week my temps have been great, running around 78 with less than 1 degree variation. The last day and a half my temps have been running up towards 81-81 degrees. Is there any good ways people have found to lower temps, or keep them more stable without the use of a chiller? My new place does not have AC so it does get a little warmer one month out of the year. I have tried ice packs in a small zip lock bag, but those do not seem to be helping. Thanks!

[homer1475]

Just a small fan pointed across the surface works well. Of course you get way more evaporation that way too.

[James77]

There is nothing wrong with 81 degrees, or even 83-84 degrees in a tank. The major issue is the swing, and if the animals and coral are used to it. A tank that is rock solid 78 degrees all year that spikes to 83-84 for a week and if it happens quickly will be very stressful to the critters. If the tank slowly starts swinging up towards that temperature as summer comes and goes, then they will not have any problems whatsoever.

I have had tanks that swung 6-7 degrees in one day, and I have pushed tanks as high as 86-87 degrees. While I would never recommend doing that high a temp, the tank life never looked happier and I only killed the lights with a controller because that is beyond a comfortable temperature for me. Having a tank that is rock solid with everything is not a bad thing, but it can also set you up for problems if something jumps out of that set zone.

If you are hitting 81-82, do not be worried, the tank will be fine. A temp controller(or if you have a controller like Neptune or whatnot) can allow you to turn the lights off at maybe 83 or 84 to be safe. Or a dual controller ranco(or the neptune or whatnot) could turn a fan on when the tank goes over 81 or 82. A fan can do some serious cooling. Again, the swing is the biggest issue. If you jump to 84 from 78 in one day, you will have problems. If the tank gradually gets warmer over a few weeks and cools back down over a few weeks you will be ok.

Even just pointing an oscillating room fan at the tank will help it evaporate(cool down).

[rbraunberger]

Hello,

I added two small fans I had on my Xbox and Playstation to the back of the tank. Small opening for pipes. They are not over the water, but will push a good amount of warmer air out of the cab.

James77 - The tank is going up rather slowly. I was going up less than .1 degrees an hour. I do have my lights set to turn off at 81 degrees. Should I turn that off and allow the lights to stay on until a higher temp? Thanks!

[Ron Reefman]

The tank is going up rather slowly. I was going up less than .1 degrees an hour. I do have my lights set to turn off at 81 degrees. Should I turn that off and allow the lights to stay on until a higher temp? Thanks!

If the higher temps are just for a month or two, I'd let the lights go off at 81. When the weather cools, you shouldn't have the problem.

[rbraunberger]

i set the lights to go off at 82 just to see how the system reacts to the fans with everything going. If still going up I will reset to go off at 81

[Ls2Goat]

Open the top with some air movement across and that'll keep it 2-3 degrees below room temp.