How to keep tank cool during the hot summers?

Chillers are too expensive, just run a fan over the top of the water. A regular plastic desk fan sits on the top of mine. I also searched on ebay and found two small square ones that are probably for lights. I will sit those on top of tank for when real summer comes.
 
Jeff, you may want to look first at cooling the room down where the tank is. Close blinds, open windows, turn-off any electrical app that you have running in the room.

You could also adjust your lights "on time" to turn on after the peak of the days heat has passed, say around 4pm.

Another option is get a room air-conditioner where you just cool the room down. I did this many years ago trying to cool my 90gallon reef aquarium. Worked well over the summer months.
 
Thanks everyone for the tips. I used a fan next to lights last year and it worked fine. I totally spaced it on Saturday and left my house windows open and toasted some of my corals. I lost about 25% of my coral when the water spiked to the upper 80's. I was pretty bummed but at least I didn't lose everything! I spent last night rearranging the surviving coral and it looks better than before. Now I just have to wait for the grow out again!
 
Rodney said:
Jeff, you may want to look first at cooling the room down where the tank is. Close blinds, open windows, turn-off any electrical app that you have running in the room.

You could also adjust your lights "on time" to turn on after the peak of the days heat has passed, say around 4pm.

Another option is get a room air-conditioner where you just cool the room down. I did this many years ago trying to cool my 90gallon reef aquarium. Worked well over the summer months.
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Thnks rodney.. i started running a fan daily and left my window open all day.. luckly its been fairly cool outside..

the only thing is.. what can i do once the temp outside spikes to 90 and over to 100 with no wind and just super humid.... how would i keep my tanks cool then without using much of the ac.. like right now temps are perfect.. its not dat hot and the wind keeps things pretty cool..
 
jeppun21 said:
Thnks rodney.. i started running a fan daily and left my window open all day.. luckly its been fairly cool outside..

the only thing is.. what can i do once the temp outside spikes to 90 and over to 100 with no wind and just super humid.... how would i keep my tanks cool then without using much of the ac.. like right now temps are perfect.. its not dat hot and the wind keeps things pretty cool..
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You'll need to run the AC and cool down the room very little, say 80F should be fine and then run a fan across the top of the tank, that should work to keep the tank cool. You may want to look at getting a controller.
 
I have found that aiming a powerhead at the surface to create a lot of turbulence works to reduce the temp at least 3 degrees (maybe 5 or 6 degrees) in my 55 G (plus 20 G sump). This is a very quick and easy solution to try. I have 400W of PC lighting with about a 3 inch gap to the surface. The lamps are fully enclosed with a fan that exhausts the enclosure. My top off is manual and I have to top off much more frequently when I aim my powerhead at the surface.

I am thinking about getting a fan which may increase the evaporation cooling effect over using just the powerhead aimed at the surface. Is it possible to cool with evaporation so much that the tank stays cooler than the room? I think it is.

Also, in my apartment which isn't air-conditioned, a lot of the time I can store enough cold in the rooms during the night - by opening windows at say 10 pm, and closing them say at 11:00 am when things start warming up. However, a lot of times in Chicago things don't cool down very much at all at night.

I really like the idea of floating frozen glass bottles. But with evaporation, floating DI cubes might actually help since I don't have an ATO.
 
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