Keeping fish cool for summer, any suggestions?
 

I'm new with owning fish. I have two tanks right now, a 55gallon, and a 10 gallon.

I live on the third floor of an apartment. I don't have control over the heat and I don't have air conditioning.

I'm already having a hard time keeping the tank cool, and with summer on it's way, I don't know how I'm going to keep the water cool enough so I don't cook my poor fishies.

Does anyone have any advice for keeping water cool?


-Jen

You can go with a chiller for your fish tank. Here's an article of other options: http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/cooling.shtml

chiller is the safest but most expensive way, but yes i would chose safe rather than money.

i am having a hard job imagining living in such a place that you worry about keeping your fish cool, rather then warm

i think my fish are much warmer then me most of the time

Both my fish tank temperatures are 85degrees or more, the tank thermometer stripe is at the highest it displays. I'm just worried that come summer time, my apartment could be 100degrees (hopefully not) or more and i dont want the tank water getting too hot and cooking my fish.

You could make ice cubes out of dechlorinated water and have those drip into the tank.

sorry BurningCuriosity, by saying that i didnt mean that you were wrong - i was just stating the differences really. if i left my tanks unheated they would be at about 65, which would be no use at all. i was only really trying to make the point that theres a huge difference to fishkeeping depending on what country you live in

A couple things that have worked for me in the past are:
Freezing 1 liter bottles of water and putting them in during the warmest times of the day. In the 55 gallon it won't be much of a shock but I wouldn't do it in the 10 gallon. Maybe use the little plastic refreezable ice cubes for the 10 gallon.
Another option is to set 2 liter bottles in front of a fan and let the fan cool the tank. I have used this with fair success just last summer although it was to keep my kids and myself cool.
You can set up a fan to blow over the top of the tank without a closed lid and this will allow for evaporation and cooling of the tanks. Egg crate seems to the preferred way to keep the fish from jumping out when cooling this way. Just make sure to keep plenty of dechlorinated water in hand to top off the tanks.

Ditto what F4A said.

It works and is not that "big of a deal" to have one in the tank and one in the freezer.

The real question is how is BC going to survive 100F all summer?

TR

Given the cost of aquarium chillers, you'd probably be better off buying a room air conditioner. I think you can find a small one for under $400 and you can keep yourself cool too!

Although the frozen bottles of water are a cheap way to get by for now. :-)