How do I keep my aquarium cool in hot weather? Let's take a quick recap on some things you can do to help keep your reef cool and more importantly, at a stable temperature throughout heatwaves.
There are many things that don't go well together in this world and as aquarists one set of things I'm sure we can all agree don't go well together are heatwaves and reef tanks. Reef tanks are all about parameter stability, from nutrients to temperature we're trying our best to keep them within a set range consistently over time. Heatwaves by their very nature have the potential to cause our reef tank temperatures to fluctuate, sometimes to an extreme over a relatively small period of time which can be highly detrimental to the consistency we're trying to maintain.
So what do we need to do? We need to manage the temperature of our aquariums throughout heatwaves to prevent any livestock losses. And how do we that? Let's look over some of the options available.
AQUARIUM PLACEMENT
When we talk about actions we can take to combat a heatwave then really we're looking at preventative and mitigating measures. As for preventative measures, well we can't really prevent a heatwave but we can anticipate that they will happen so if you're looking at setting up an aquarium then placement is key! Keeping aquariums out of direct sunlight will help you control the temperature in the aquarium as well as help prevent algae blooms. We can also scope out the coolest part of the house where the temperature is most consistent, this is likely to be in the north east corner of your home. This part of a building will get some sun in the morning but will mostly escape the afternoon sun.
FANS
Now onto mitigating measures, the heatwave is already underway and we want to get control of the temperature in the aquarium. We can try to increase the airflow around the aquarium and across the water surface to increase the transfer of heat although this will also increase evaporation so expect to use more water in your RO Top-Up. There are mixed reports on how successful this method is, all in all it will probably help initially but if you want to have complete and assured control over the temperature of your aquarium then we need to look at chillers.
CHILLERS
Another mitigating measure is to install a chiller onto your system. Chillers are essentially refrigeration units which water is pumped through to cool before being returned to the aquarium. You can get chillers which manage the temperature themselves or you can attach them to temperature controllers such as the DD Temperature Controller which will automatically manage the chiller and heater based on a temperature which you set.
You can also read about keeping your reef cool at this other RockNCritters blog here.
And as always, come and see us in store and we can discuss what you can do to combat this heat plus you can see the chillers we have installed on our systems.