Corals constricted, high temp in the summer

[Capslock]

Hi there,

Recently (for the past few weeks) my marina electronic thermostat has told me the temp has been 74 or below, even though I thought this was strange I increased my heaters operating temp. I then felt the water did not feel right so I bought two new thermostats, an electronic and a liquid. Turns out the marina thermostat was broken. In the mean time the water temp reached about 90 degrees! and this was all during a high humid heat wave.

Within this time I seen my corals extremely constricted and my candy coral started to lose some its color - more so on the sides, imagine 'thickness' of the color.

I have since been able to reduce the tanks temp to 81 degrees. It is a nano tank and I have had to bring the light up to a higher level - meaning its not laying flat on the tank but angled and suspended, so about 1/3 of the light is not ending up in the tank, rather in the room.

Long story short I realized if the bulk of the summer is about 85 degrees in my house, I decided to come to all of you for advise.

How can I keep my tank cool (81 max) if the room temp is consistently above that? What have you done to counter-act a hot summer week/month?

I cannot currently afford a chiller,
I have air conditioning in the house however it only coveres the first floor the house and would thus be ineffective to use practically.


A secondary question about my corals being constricted even now will be in another thred.

Thanks everyone.

 

[NextReef]

Some ideas:

1) Start saving for a chiller
2) Start saving for a chiller
3) Start saving for a chiller

Seriously, you're fighting 2 things... trying to bring the water under ambient temperature (not easy to start), and heat from things like your powerheads (I'm assuming since you said it's a nano, they're all submerged) and lights. Just keeping that tank at ambient temperature is going to be tough.

Evaporative cooling helps, not sure if you've tried adding a fan over the tank and leaving the lid open - you'll evaporate water quickly, but it will bring the temp down somewhat. $5 clip on fans from walmart work great. I guess your other choice is to move that tank to the air conditioned part of your house.

Another choice is to make some RO/DI ice cubes and ice that tank daily... it works great in an emergency, but the temp fluctuations will stress the tank over time.

Check eBay, you can pick up a small chiller in the $150 range...

 

[robinhood]

Try it. I have used this before and it worked. Takes a bit of creative fiddeling with the coil and fan setup though but it it works.

Buy a really small and cheap power head 20$ or use an old one the flow does not need to be very high.

Go the the hardware store and pickup 20 ft of 1/4 inch or 3/8 inch nylon or plasic clear/translucent tubing probably about 7$, also buy a small piece of slightly larger tubing (this is so you can press and fit the small 1/4 or 3/8 tube into the powerhead outlet). You can also use marine aproxi for rocks they sell it the LFS for usually around 10$.

You will also need a fan does need to be big (better if its not) but a variable speed is best.

conect the tube to the powerhead in the tank then set up the fan and the tubing so it is blowing though the coil of tubing some where not to far from the tank, the ciols of the tubing should a little spaced so as to let as much air tavel over all of the tubing and then set the outlet of the tubing runing back into to the tank.

Thi8s should drop the temperature. It will be best to find a low setting on the fan as this will provide the most stable day/night temp. Also if you can keep as much of the power head out of the water in the tank it will transfer less heat to the tank itself. You could set the fan so th exhaust of blows across the top of the tank AFTER it has passed through the coil it will help even more.

P.S. I would still try to get your hands on a chiller ASAP though, there is no substitute

 

[Anonymous]

A fan aimed at the surface of the tank works wonders. I can drop the temp of my tank by 4-6 degrees with a fan. The only draw back is the extra evaporation it causes to cool the tank.

 

[SnowManSnow]

IMO a FAN is the cheapest and fastest way to cool a tank down. It can REALLY drop the temp. The downside is the noise IMO.

B