I almost had a heart attack this week when a heat wave drove through the East coast. The temp in my second (top) floor apartment rose up and up and up, making the ambient air temp do crazy things to my fish tank. Something, up until now, I had not even thought of. Normal temp for Discus from what I have read and discussed with various breeders should ideally be about 84-88 degrees Fahrenheit. Well this past Monday, while doing routine water change, I noticed 91.8 and climbing. Instant knee jerk reaction was to pull out the hot water and insert some cooler water.
After a 50% water change, I got it down to 87 again, but it wasn't long before it began to creep up again. I could see the fish breathing much faster and beginning to get a little restless. So I began doing some research for my options.
My options:
1) Move the tank to a cooler space (not possible) since everywhere in the apartment gets equally hot. Air-conditioners in general can only do so much when you are on the top floor.
2) do daily water changes (very inconvenient with my work schedule) work 8-16 hours multiple times a week. So physically impossible.
3) Buy a series of fans to place above the tank cooling the water a little at a time
4) buy a chiller
I opted for a chiller. Initial research proved that Chillers are ridiculously expensive. Talking about $600 to $1000 and more depending on size of your tank and temp requirements.
I didn't want to short change myself in this department, because now that I got a taste of what fun fish-keeping is, I will most likely be upgrading to a larger tank. So I had the foresight to seek out a chiller with capabilities of up to 150 gallons. I called a couple of LFS's and they told me to look for 1/3-1/2 horsepower models based on a 110 gallon tank.
I found a used chiller on craigslist in my local area. Its a Aqua Logic 1/3 HP Chiller with Temp Controller. This is a $1000 machine that I got for $500.
Specs:
http://www.customaquatic.com/estore/control/product/~product=CH-ALDS-4
Specs on Temp Controller:
http://www.customaquatic.com/estore/control/product/~product=CH-ALTR115DNB
It is 2 years old and in mint condition. It was used on a saltwater tank, so needless to say it had to be thoroughly flushed out before I considered adding it to my existing set-up. The temp probe also had significant salt on it that needed to be cleaned. Once that was done, the plumbing modifications were truly very simple.
I opted to use the Fluval Output to push the clean filtered water through the chiller and back into the tank.
Once the plumbing was done, it was all of about 2 minutes to set-up the controller. If you choose to, you can connect your heating element to one side and the chiller to the other side of the temp controller and allow the device itself to activate either the heater or chiller depending on what parameters you select.
I want to keep the tank in the range of 84-88 degrees plus or minus 1 degree.
To test the device, I purposely filled the tank with warmer water than normal (90 degrees) to see how it would react. After initial turn on, it only took about 10 seconds for the controller to realize that the tank needed to be cooled. It started the chiller right up and began to cool down the tank. Once it reached 88.7 it shut down the chiller.
I couldn't be happier and now my fish aren't breathing so fast anymore. What a relief. Summers here can be truly brutal in my apartment. My apartment has reached 110 degrees when everything is locked down and the doors and windows are closed off. Talk about peace of mind.
Now all that is left is to find a reliable automatic feeder for my up-coming (1 week) vacation in July. Any thoughts on that are welcome.
After a 50% water change, I got it down to 87 again, but it wasn't long before it began to creep up again. I could see the fish breathing much faster and beginning to get a little restless. So I began doing some research for my options.
My options:
1) Move the tank to a cooler space (not possible) since everywhere in the apartment gets equally hot. Air-conditioners in general can only do so much when you are on the top floor.
2) do daily water changes (very inconvenient with my work schedule) work 8-16 hours multiple times a week. So physically impossible.
3) Buy a series of fans to place above the tank cooling the water a little at a time
4) buy a chiller
I opted for a chiller. Initial research proved that Chillers are ridiculously expensive. Talking about $600 to $1000 and more depending on size of your tank and temp requirements.
I didn't want to short change myself in this department, because now that I got a taste of what fun fish-keeping is, I will most likely be upgrading to a larger tank. So I had the foresight to seek out a chiller with capabilities of up to 150 gallons. I called a couple of LFS's and they told me to look for 1/3-1/2 horsepower models based on a 110 gallon tank.
I found a used chiller on craigslist in my local area. Its a Aqua Logic 1/3 HP Chiller with Temp Controller. This is a $1000 machine that I got for $500.
Specs:
http://www.customaquatic.com/estore/control/product/~product=CH-ALDS-4
Specs on Temp Controller:
http://www.customaquatic.com/estore/control/product/~product=CH-ALTR115DNB
It is 2 years old and in mint condition. It was used on a saltwater tank, so needless to say it had to be thoroughly flushed out before I considered adding it to my existing set-up. The temp probe also had significant salt on it that needed to be cleaned. Once that was done, the plumbing modifications were truly very simple.
I opted to use the Fluval Output to push the clean filtered water through the chiller and back into the tank.
Once the plumbing was done, it was all of about 2 minutes to set-up the controller. If you choose to, you can connect your heating element to one side and the chiller to the other side of the temp controller and allow the device itself to activate either the heater or chiller depending on what parameters you select.
I want to keep the tank in the range of 84-88 degrees plus or minus 1 degree.
To test the device, I purposely filled the tank with warmer water than normal (90 degrees) to see how it would react. After initial turn on, it only took about 10 seconds for the controller to realize that the tank needed to be cooled. It started the chiller right up and began to cool down the tank. Once it reached 88.7 it shut down the chiller.
I couldn't be happier and now my fish aren't breathing so fast anymore. What a relief. Summers here can be truly brutal in my apartment. My apartment has reached 110 degrees when everything is locked down and the doors and windows are closed off. Talk about peace of mind.
Now all that is left is to find a reliable automatic feeder for my up-coming (1 week) vacation in July. Any thoughts on that are welcome.
