Summer means sweat, because even within our homes the temperature rises steadily. This can also be discerned in the aquarium.
Even at a room temperature of 28 °C, the temperatures in the aquarium can quickly exceed 30 °C. The lighting under the closed aquarium canopy gives off heat to the water. Now at the latest it is time to act.
But don’t worry, most fish species can endure temperatures of about 30 °C in the short-term. But this means a few days – and we want the summer to last a few weeks. This can lead to an endurance test in a marine aquarium.
You need to monitor this increase of temperature to avoid values over 28 °C (for the treatment of diseases and for some fish species this is very important).
If the room where the aquarium is already has a room temperature over 28 °C, you need to reach deeply into your bag of tricks. In the internet you can find lots of tips which can help in the short term. Ice cubes, cooling batteries or a water change with cold water are a solution which is frequently recommended online. We strongly advise against such solutions because they can cause a sharp change in temperature and they only result in a short-term success (for a few hours). And the sudden change in temperature means additional stress for your aquarium dwellers.
Which simple solutions remain for you?
1. Avoid direct sunlight on your aquarium. Closed roller shutters or drawn curtains help keep the temperatures down.
2. An easy solution is to open the aquarium cover. This often helps to reduce the temperature by about 1-2 °C.
3. The lighting can be reduced or put on at night. This reduction or postponement can easily save you 1 °C.
4. By means of an Luchtpompen you can aerate the aquarium to ensure a higher water surface movement and oxygen entry. With increasing temperature the degree of oxygen saturation in the water drops so that you prevent an oxygen deficiency caused by high temperatures.
5. Align the filter outlet towards the water surface. The strong surface movement ensures more oxygen entry and reduces the temperature by means of evaporation-based cooling.
However in most cases these steps are not enough. The only options then are to purchase a circulation cooler for several hundred euro or to use a cooling fan (cooler) for your aquarium.
You will reach a temperature reduction of 2-4 °C. The JBL PROTEMP Cooler x200 is easily mounted at the aquarium rim and aligned diagonally to the water surface. The air current generated leads to evaporation and water cooling. The principle is called evaporative cooling. Additionally you have the opportunity to extend the system with a temperature controller which shuts off the JBL cooler when the desired temperature is reached.
