PlanetCatfish.com

Summer is almost here. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a particular model of small fan say 3-4" in diameter that can be used for cooling fish tanks? Preferably something that can be bought online in the US.

Thanks,
Dinyar

Any decent CPU cooling fan will do.

A DIY setup can be found here.

Newegg is an online retailer I highly recommend...

http://www2.newegg.com/ProductSort/Cate ... ategory=11

Thank you, gentlemen. (I'm sure my Glyptothorax would thank you as well if they could. Who said India's hot?)

I will have to try to find an alternative way to mount the fans, blowing diagonally down on to the water rather than vertically.

Dinyar

http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fus ... 1/cid/2178

These fans are somewhat expensive, but perhaps you could DIY something similar.

You come up with some cool links, Rahul! Nice fans and and an interesting site that I'd never seen before.

I bet there's some Chinese company somewhere that churns out cheap little clip-on fans...

Also appreciated your previous referral to petshrimp.com. I actually had lunch with the webmaster the other day. Not a lot of aquarists in Manhattan.

Dinyar

You're welcome...

lots of aquarists here feel like moving to move to LA??

just out of interest, do tropical tanks require cooling in the US during summer?

if so, all I can say is, you lucky lucky people. I come from the land of rain

Nik_Boyd wrote:just out of interest, do tropical tanks require cooling in the US during summer?

if so, all I can say is, you lucky lucky people. I come from the land of rain

It all depends on:
1) Where you live in the US. There are places that get to 40-45'C (100-110'F) quite regularly [South Texas and Arizona for instance].
2) Whether your fish-tank is in an air-conditioned part of your house or not.
Most people keep their living quarters air-conditioned, but for example a garage or shed that is used as a fish-room may not be air-conditioned.

Of course, you could also consider that some people keep fish that don't REALLY like much more than low- to average room temperature, so cooling for the fish might be necessary if they like a temperature of say 16-20'C max.

Since I've spent a rather substantial time in Texas (on various business trips and a couple of visits to friends from there), I know which I'd choose to live in, and rainy England beats Texas summer heat every time. If you walk home from a visit to the local "pub", at around midnight, in shorts and a T-shirt, and you have to take the T-shirt off because you're sweating too much, it's a little bit beyond what I'd call "pleasant". Each to their own, however.

Sure, I wouldn't mind the climate of, say, mid-north California, usually dry, moderate heat. That's nice. But there's such a thing as "Too much of a good thing"...

--
Mats

Dinyar, I've got a cooling system in my showtank wich I installed after a particular lethal summer and living in the top level of a building with 7 levels.

basically it's simple; I hooked a 240v cooling fan on one end of the hood (it's wooden, so I drilled some holes and placed the fan against those on the inside).

the fan blows outward.

on the other end of the hood are also some holes.

this fan was wired to a timer; and 4 times a day it switched on for a duration of say, 15 minutes or so.

it is very simple, sucking the moist air and heat out of the hood, and at the other end dry and cooler air was sucked in.
I covered those holes with fine plastic mesh (kept Polypterids then, and they're escape artists).

now I live on groundlevel where it is far cooler, so I don't use the system anymore, but it's still there.

works perfect; the jetstream of air creates evaporation of the water; and evaporation is a process that uses heat.
of course I had to add water every few days when it got real hot.

but it saved my fish, and it's dead easy to make.

Thanks, Sid. Rusty and I were already discussing the possibility of building a wooden hood with built in cooling fans. If it becomes too complex a project, though, we may not complete it before summer comes.

And to the previous question of whether cooling fans are needed in the US, that depends among other things on what kind of fish you keep. My tank temperatures reach 90 F (32 C) on some days, and while almost all my fish survive this routinely, for some species it is a problem.

Dinyar

I built a similar hood to sidguppy... But mine has glass under the lights. I use it to keep my lights cooler and the glass prevents evaporation. I will take some pictures of it when I get a chance. I also use computer case cooling fans for another tank and just hook them up to a 12v converter.

Cheers, Whitepine