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Comment by Dave & Yvonne Story on August 6, 2012 at 9:09am

scott thanks for the info

I do plan to put my tanks in the ground, when I move to my place south of Van Horn.

the temperatures of 68-72 are a little low for my tilapia, but okay, if I am not breeding.

Comment by Bryan Acred on August 6, 2012 at 8:54am

My 300gal tank is in the ground. The temperature hangs around 85deg so far with these super hot days.

Comment by Scott Barr on August 5, 2012 at 6:52am

Swamp cooling/evaprative cooling works but not very efficiently at high Texas humidity. In New Mexico and Arizona swamp coolers provide home cooling. Do you see that here in Texas?

Comment by Scott Barr on August 5, 2012 at 6:45am

By the way, if your tank is in the ground and you are using a geothermal bed about 7 to 8 feet below the surface it will help stabilize annual temp, That means that you will have less need for electric HEATING in the winter and electric COOLING in the summer. Despite what Rob thinks. You would be insulating tank and using thermal mass to maintain temp. The approximate ground temp at 7 to 8 feet deep is 68-72 degress and that varies very little annualy.

Comment by Harold "Hal" L Guentert Jr. on August 4, 2012 at 10:10pm

Thanks for all the great ideas on dealing with high temperatures.  I am working on using similar or related ideas.  I have cut the direct sunlight almost completely out, and planning to build and in ground pool about 4 feet deep during the cooler months.  I doubt the.shallower Koi pools are doing well even with shade. 

 

I may try fans blowing across the top of the water if things get any worse, and I am worn down with the iced bottle shuttling.  It is just exhausting trying to work on other projects, and still worry about cooling before I can afford to get the fish.

I saw a fairly inexpensive evaporative cooler for ponds, but think a small fan blowing across a tank should make a big difference, but also don't like the idea of more electricity and water use.  Hopefully it will be short term, and will solar power the fans eventually.

 

Best wishes to you all!

Hal

   

Comment by Scott Barr on August 4, 2012 at 4:06pm

Rob:Please give credit where it is due and not to Rick..

Rick: no offense.

A teepee structure works great for summertime shade and winter time greenhouse. No need to build a large inefficient square glass/plastic greenhouse. You can stand in shade in the cool water and tend your plants and fish.

Comment by Rob Nash on August 4, 2012 at 8:05am

 

Hal, try more shade over the tank area ...the goal is, no sun light on the tank all day. Like Rick suggested, you can put the tank in the ground… just remember that in the winter you cant expect your heater to ever get the water warmer than 55-60 degrees...which is fine.

i like the idea of a geothermal line in the ground ...but, be sure to use a heat exchanger on that line, the tank water will build up too fast and clog.

 

try this... hang a bucket with lots of holes in the bottom, to create a shower effect. 

run the water thru the bucket and let it fall back to the fish tank about 2 ft while blowing a fan on it. ...be sure to not blow your water away. this will cool the water, as much as 20 degrees.

Comment by Scott Barr on August 4, 2012 at 7:16am

I do not know if you are able but you can get cooler temps by using geothermal temp difirential. At a few feet down the earth is cooler than atmospheric temp. If you dig down put in a "bed" of tubing/ hose into ground and the backfill hope leaving two tubing/hose end exposed you can then use the temperature differance to cool your water by running your water thru the cool ground. If set up corectly you will not even need any pump/electrictiy to move the water. Just use the thermal incline. You could also burrie you tanks to get geothermal insulation.
Are we not trying to make balanced systems? Why make it more expensive with a electrical cooling/ heat exchange device.
Caveat:
I do have access to powerd digging equipment which makes easy and cheep to dig trench for tubing/hose and hole for tank.
You have to do the math or be very lucky to get what you need in temp differance.
Hope I helped and not gave you a headache.
Scott

Comment by Rick kolb on August 3, 2012 at 11:52pm

Hal
Here is an easy suggestion,
--Go and buy some pex pipe from home depot or lowes enough to circle the inside of each tank twice and to reach each tank plus 6 ft .
-- Buy a $99.00 a/c window unit
-- get a styro foam Ice chest remove the lid and cut two 2" holes on the longest side to allow some air pressure out and your pipes in and out ,
-- get a plug in timer with at least 4 on and off cycles to plug the a/c into.
--Buy a small pump

Put the pump in the largest tank.
Hook the pex to the out put on the pump now run it through the ice chest
making four or more loops.
duck tape it to the front of the a/c unit
Run the pex through each tank looping two times and ending back in the largest tank. Set the timer to run for two hours then off for three.
This should work, jusy watch the water temp and adjust as needed at night run longer off cycles.

Hope this helps.

Rick .

Comment by Harold "Hal" L Guentert Jr. on August 3, 2012 at 10:52pm

Hi, I am in San Antonio trying to deal with the 100+ degree heat that has me worried at this point. My tanks are in a ShelterLogic screen shelter that I can close in for the winter.   I use 2 180 gallon tanks, 1 110 gallon tank, 2 55 gallon drums, and adding 2 more 55 gallon drums cut in half for my crawfish to move from the 110 gallon tank.  My dream is to build a formal garden pool/pond for KOI and potentailly a section for Coppernose Bluegill that are even more temperature tolerant, but nothing to look at.

I have been learning a lot and having to drop frozen water bottles into my tanks to even maintain 80-82 degrees, so not adding any fish until this heat wave drops off.  Supposedly it peaked out today and L lost two fish (goldfish and Zebra Danio).

One tank hit 86 and a new one with no ice hit about 90, so I move some insulation foam sheets around the sides of the shelter wher the Sun hits these tanks,, and hope it will help.  I had to leave today and had a feeling it was going to be hotter than usual and dumped all the moremal amount od ice for a day in the tanks first.  Water was still 80-86 degrees.  It seems reidiculaous.. 

IS anyone using fans for eveaporative cooling.  I did not want to lose more water, but at the point, I will either need to move the freezer out into the shelter or come up with something else effective.  Evaporative cooling is the only thing I have head of the seems to work short of high priced chillers.

Best Wishes,

Hal

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