Can Fish Tanks Handle High Water Temperatures?

[punman]

From time to time I have cleaned empty tanks by first adding a quarter tankful of hot water from the tap. I have not had a problem but got to thinking that could there be some risk to the glass/sealant by doing that? Is there some king of magical high temperature threshold that should not be crossed? I cannot imagine an aquarium surviving boiling water poured from a tea kettle into an empty tank for example.

 

[Mitchell The Monster]

When you pour hot water on glass the glass absorbs the heat and expands so when you pour hot enough water it expands too much for the bracing, seals, and such and cracks. You would need very hot water to achieve this but i think you will be safe using hot tap water to kill bacteria and clean it down. Hope this helps.

 

[esoxlucius]

Aquarium sealants are extremely durable. They can withstand very low and very high temps. So you just dropping a bit of hot water in a tank to give it a bit of a clean for five minutes and then emptying it out is nothing really. However, if you were running a tank with constant extremely high temps then what the long term effect would be on the sealant I don't know. But let's face it, unless you were keeping the julimes pupfish you would never run a tank at extremely high temps anyway.

As for glass, the only thing you need to be careful of there is pouring very hot water on extremely cold glass, it's likely to crack. So unless you are cleaning a tank that's been out in freezing conditions, with boiling water, then I don't think you need to worry.

 

[FishBeast]

Silicone can handle -100F to 400F on a continuous basis.