Cheap fans, Ice bottle savior

Fans:

If your house is getting too hot for your aquarium before you drop cash on a big chiller or give up the tank try some fans blowing across the top of your tank. Just use caution they are not too close or able to fall in. Salt creep building up on electrical appliances not made to be around saltwater could become a hazard! Use caution.

Note: saltcreep aka DRC Secretary may also be a hazard if left alone with your aquarium and an empty cooler. :wink:

Ice bottle savior:

A used cleaned soda bottle, filled with RODI, and set in the fridge with out a lid could help save your tank. Temperatures could reach 100*F in the next couple of days. verdict_in

If the power goes out or your AC fails you may need a way to keep your tank cool. If you have a very large tank you may consider freezing more than one bottle.

ChillPill Keep cool! ChillPill

If you freeze them do you keep the lids on? Put lids on after they freeze or is the point to let the water slowly thaw into your tank?

Lid off while freezing so the bottle doesn’t crack.(and don’t fill the bottle to the tip top) Then place a lid on it before putting it in the tank. That is unless you could also use 2L of top off which actually would work out real well in that case. :slight_smile:

With the lid on it’s just like a heater, but cooling the water that passes by versus warming it.

If you have a very small glass sump you may want to be careful that the ice bottle doesn’t go right up against the glass. We’ve never heard of it happening, but can imagine a scenario similar to a hot coffee pot and cold water. Probably doubtful, but worth mentioning.

It is already 97*F here in Newark, DE! >:::

to freeze platic bottles of water you have to leave room for the ice to expand as it freezes. water expands about 10% in volume when it freezes into ice. so i used to fill the bottle 90% full or a little less to be safe. then sqeeze the bottle till all the air is out and cap. that leaves room for it to expand.

Good tips. My problem is my heaters have been running about half the day since the basement setup is running.

Another option is to use ice pops. My grand kids love them, so we always have a bunch on hand in the freezer.

4 of the large ones will fit in a standard overflow without a problem, and the much larger surface area helps with the cooling.

Jon’s tip is great, but I almost never think about getting bottles frozen in advanced. This works great for me, but YMMV.

Just remember the water that will be displaced from placing bottles in your sump! Don’t want your skimmer to overflow :slight_smile:

[quote=“jtnova13, post:7, topic:5567”]
Just remember the water that will be displaced from placing bottles in your sump! Don’t want your skimmer to overflow :)[/quote]

Good call!