When cooling down a fish tank

how long should i leave the bag of ice cubes in? my puffers tank is 86-90 right now so i put in a sandwich bag full of ice cubes and have it floating in his tank. How long should it take for the temp to go down. I can't turn on the A.C. and i have to keep windows closed. I have the fan on in my room. I don't have any little fans to put on the back of the tank. But does the bag of ice really help?​

 

I would think a sandwich bag full of ice will not lower the temp at all in a 46G. I would get a fan and turn it on full and blow it towards the top of the tank.

J

 

There's no way to know the answer to that for sure . . . too many variables. it will go down when it goes down, remove the ice cubes when it gets to where you want it.

~Will.

 

oh, i should add, it's for his 20 gallon, i'm not to worried about the 46 since nothing is in it

 

ok, i think i'll check it every half hour, i guess if i need to add more, i'll add more, i'm even giving ice cubes to the dogs right now to try to keep them cool

 

You might want to try freezing water in a few soda bottles (20oz or 2 liters) instead of bags of ice. Just cycle them out when they thaw in the tank and re-freeze them.

~Will.

 

ok, i don't have soda bottles but i have bottles of water, so i'll put 2 in the freezer, hopefull it wont take to long to freeze

 

I would try to get the fan to somehow blow across the top of the tank so you get the heat to burn off. the ideal route would be to turn on the ac or open the wondow but you said you can so that is what I would do. If you have a sump underneath open the cabinet and also try to fan in that area too. anything you can do on top of the ice to help.

 

i'll be able to turn on the a.c. sometime this evening, like after 4 or 5 once the construction workers leave so my tank has 3 or 4 more hours being hot. And i don't have a sump, so that idea won't work, so i guess i will just have to hope that the water bottles and ice bags will work

 

I can get the temp down by 2 deg in my 55 with the ice trick. Takes quite a few bags and about an hour to do it though.