Help! House AC failed. Tank is at 83 degrees and rising.

[Zakary2003]

My house air conditioning gave out yesterday and the temperature of my house is rising steadily. We cannot get someone to come out and fix it soon enough. My 8 gallon nano tank is currently at 83.6 and the temperature keeps rising. I currently have a fan pointed at the water surface but it can only do so much. How can I bring down and keep down the tank temperature? Can I add RODI ice cubes or cold water or would that shock the fish and corals? This is a mixed tank with all inexpensive or easy corals. There are zoas, monti caps, chalice, pagona, and clove polyps so far. The only fish is a damsel and there is a small CuC with hermit crabs, astrea snails, and a tiger conch. There is also an expensive bubble tip anemone... please help!

 

[14 foot reef]

Double up Ice bags to not leak into tank only put enough in to start dropping the temp to 80ish. Add more as needed

 

[bblumberg]

I'd put ice in bags and float those in the tank to reduce the temperature. Change them as needed to keep the temperature where you want it.

 

[JGT]

Same as above but can be done with frozen water bottles.

 

[vetteguy53081]

My house air conditioning gave out yesterday and the temperature of my house is rising steadily. We cannot get someone to come out and fix it soon enough. My 8 gallon nano tank is currently at 83.6 and the temperature keeps rising. I currently have a fan pointed at the water surface but it can only do so much. How can I bring down and keep down the tank temperature? Can I add RODI ice cubes or cold water or would that shock the fish and corals? This is a mixed tank with all inexpensive or easy corals. There are zoas, monti caps, chalice, pagona, and clove polyps so far. The only fish is a damsel and there is a small CuC with hermit crabs, astrea snails, and a tiger conch. There is also an expensive bubble tip anemone... please help!

obtain zip lock bags. You can buy a 30 pack for under $5. Place them in the sump, and use a size that will fit fine and the idea is to rotate them. fill about 5 of them with water and place in freezer. Place one frozen one in sump, allow to melt and lower temp. When it melts, pull a new frozen one from freezer and place melted one back in freezer. Often one bag may bring down temp less than a half degree why you want several

 

[14 foot reef]

get to store buy 10 bags and keep changing out as the melt

 

[19Mateo83]

+1 on frozen water bottles. Easy, leak proof and cheaper than ziplock bags

 

[14 foot reef]

bottles good idea, but no one has bottles pre frozen, get the ice bags now then work on bottles.
Do NOT wait, 84 is the end of all. Dont panic

 

[ErikVR]

I can second that. Frozen water bottles and managing the temperature that way has once saved my Malawi cichlids during a freak heat wave of 40c+. Took a lot of effort but with a smaller tank it should be manageable. Good luck!

 

[rennjidk]

If you make your own rodi from a faucet, it's going to come out around 50-70F. Just do a 2g WC and repeat as necessary. Then you can start freezing bottles or whatever after.

 

[jkcoral]

Agree with everyone recommending water bottles. I live in FL, and have been in a similar situation a few years back. Here’s what I did:

1. Go to store and get a large (24 pack or whatever) of water bottles. Grab ziplock bags if you don’t have.
2. picked up 2 bags of ice.
3. Made ~8-10 bags of zip locked ice (double bagged). Put 2-3 in my tank (maybe fewer for your smaller tank) and the rest in the freezer waiting.
4. Took 8 water bottles and emptied them into my dogs’ water bowl and watered a few plants. Filled them up with Rodi water.
5. Grab cooler, lunchbox, whatever, add water bottles and a lot of ice in, a ton of table salt (if you have it), and fill the rest with water to make a freezing slurry to chill/freeze bottles fast.

Now you’ll have frozen water bottles that do a great job at bringing it down pretty quick, and while you can skip the Rodi water part, I was able to use a bottle a few times to pour in basically freezing top off water that was able to bring down water temp very aggressively if needed. Made it through a few days after a nasty storm hit with the tank being warmer than usual, but okay.

Good luck!

 

[jkcoral]

Everyone is way over thinking your issue. It's an 8 GALLON NANO TANK. If you make your own rodi from a faucet, it's going to come out around 50-70F. Just do a 2g WC and repeat as necessary. Then you can start freezing bottles or whatever after.

This is probably true lol.

Started having ptsd flashbacks of dealing with this type of situation on a larger tank after a hurricane hahaha. Like a much more manageable situation on a smaller scale, and controlling the temp should be a little easier.

 

[Zakary2003]

I used zip lock bags full of ice. Temp is currently 79. I'm going to bring it down to 76 where I normally keep it and then switch to the frozen water bottles when they are done.

 

[14 foot reef]

perfect, I went to help mode, didnt see it was a small tank. good job

 

[jkcoral]

I used zip lock bags full of ice. Temp is currently 79. I'm going to bring it down to 76 where I normally keep it and then switch to the frozen water bottles when they are done.

Awesome. You may be melting a little, but at least your little creatures will be okay!

 

[vetteguy53081]

 

[stevolough]

I used zip lock bags full of ice. Temp is currently 79. I'm going to bring it down to 76 where I normally keep it and then switch to the frozen water bottles when they are done.

Slowly