Feelin' Hot, Hot, Hot

[Diana]

The iced bottles do not cause great, sudden changes in temperature, unless you are using too many bottles in a small tank. The large block of ice melts slowly. Compare this to the same amount of water, frozen in ice cubes. If you put that many ice cubes in the tank they would melt rather quickly, and chill the tank too fast. It is all about surface area of the ice.

[Marcos Mataratzis]

Hi all,

using iced bottles may not be a good idea, the temperature fluctuations may cause harm to the fish...

Problem is that if I do not do anything, water temperature raises above 32°C. By using 2L bottles with ice (one at a time) I get some 0,5°C drop over an hour or so. Rio de Janeiro, in the summer becomes too hot even for my Amazon Oscar (on the other tank). By this time of the year (winter here) water temperature keeps cool at about 28 to 29°C.

[Emma Turner]

Chen, using one 2L iced water bottle in a decent sized tank will not drop the water temperature quickly enough to cause any harm. In fact, a normal cool partial water change would probably have more effect than that.

My clown tank is up at 87 deg F, but with the huge amount of water movement and aeration, this is not a problem for them. The tank usually runs at 82 deg F anyway. It is the cooler water tanks I am more concerned about, but luckily the outside temp is a bit cooler today, and with all the doors and windows open, the tank temps have dropped very slightly.

Emma