Tank cooling?

Hello,

I am new to this site and a proud new keeper of a Black eyed, white Axolotl.

I am sure my questions will have been asked hundreds of times, but I cannot seem to find the answers!!

I have only had Bob about a week and a half, he is slowly getting more active, but not much. He tends to sit in one place for quite a while? Occasionally wondering around, or what looks like digging in the corner?

He hasn't eaten yet, which I am obviously worried about. I have taken advice from a great lady at my local aquarium who has been a real help. On her advice I tried to hand feed Bob last night. He raised himself up on his legs and sat with the cockle on his nose, being held by me, for at least 15 minutes or so, but didnt eat it. I wafted it around, and eventually put it down in front of him....but still no luck....he just walked over it and sat somewhere else???

The water is fine, I did a full cycle before introducing him into the tank. He has hiding places, under large logs etc, which he seems to like. He has no obvious signs of being unhealthy. However i am worried about the temperature of my tank. It sit between 23.5 and 25 I cannot seem to keep it lower as my house is very warm.....with no heating etc....which ever room! Can anyone tell me about water coolers? Or any other suggestions please?

Thanks

You could try cooling it using a fan blowing across the tank surface; as well as using frozen bottles of dechlorinated water rotated b4 the ice melts completely so the tanktemp doesn't fluctuated. If you can get the temp down to 20C or lower then that would be great.

Also, if you are able to get him some earthworms they are usually great staples (and cheap once you start an worm farm). Think you can get them from baitshops over there.

The frozen water bottle thing is a good idea. I guess I need to do this carefully as to not make huge temp change at once? How do I keep the temp low once I've got it down? Do I need to do this daily? Or as and when.....im worried about the temp going up and down too much.

Thanks for your help

We did the rotation and fan thing; the fan can bring your tank temp down by about 2-3 deg (we use a pedestal fan cos at least you can adjust height and angle); the bottle rotation we kept up during the day and eased of during the night as temp was cooler. Is your tank on a cabinet/drawer or floor? Sometimes putting it on the floor lowers the temp and away from any light/heating. The other way we kept some of our tanks cool was to move them to the spare bedroom, put them on the floor and keep curtains closed as well as run the fans when needed (didn't need to use the bottles while they were in this room but last summer the heat here wasn't that extreme)

Other ways to cool would be to buy a chiller, think Sherrisixxx, who's from London has one from memory, or you could try making a homemade one. Do a search of this forum on homemade chillers. Scroll to top and click on search.

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/7618/72032.html?1161312047

http://www.caudata.org/cc/faq/FAQhou.shtml

Welcome, Lightswitch. Yes,Kapo is right,I do have a very good, powerful cooler for my axie, but it cost me £300. So if you have that sort of money to spend, please let me know, and I'll write down the details of it. Don't buy the cheaper ones, they don't work. Good luck