Hello from Alberta!

My 15 year old decided to finally make a commitment to a pet, and to my surprise chose an Axolotl. I've never heard of them before, and I can understand her interest (regeneration? Neat!). Although she convinced us she had everything figured out before getting one, I've done some side research myself and found although she's done really well planning and preparing her small tank (a 10g for now, she said she'll want to increase to 20/30g later) she's missed the boat so to speak for temperature checks.

We've had a week or two of abnormally hot weather, and her tank temp is reaching 72-74F; As we don't have A/C in the house, I'm left with finding her a cooling solution and quickly as I don't want her Axolotl to suffer.

I have two choices - a water chiller or evaporative cooling; I would have gone the evaporative cooling route to see if it was sufficient, but we were able to get a Coralife 1/4 hp Aqua Chiller (used) for $50, and it's cycling right now in my garage for 24h to verify it works okay (so far it's done it's job using a 10g bucket of water pretty well), but the pump we received puts out far too much volume for her small tank (it would probably cause a water tornado if I used it). As well, from what I understand the correct method of connection would be from tank thru pump to filter, then on to the chiller and back to the tank. As she has a Topfin Silentstream 10, there's no connectors for the chiller (and I don't know of it would have enough power to force the water through the chiller and back up to the tank).


I was considering a submersible pump, connecting it's output to a water line and adapter to the chiller ( I think they're 3/4", but I'm not sure) and then running the chilled water to the opposite side of the tank (since a submersible pump would increase the temperature of the tank a little), or placing a flat device suspended above the water so the outflow hits it and splits it up, causing a raindroplike waterfall and dissipating it's force).


This is really only for summer - for Fall it doesn't get that hot, and winter we keep the indoor temperature in the 65-69F range anyways, so we likely won't need a chiller then.


Anyone have any ideas/suggestions for me? I'll paste this to another section of the site for input too, as I dont know how many people will read the welcome section.






Thank you!

Hello and welcome!
I am setting up my chiller now and am using a submersible pump. I have a HOB filter so it's my only option. Your LFS should sell any kind of adapter you need so take whatever piping you have/attachments and they can help get the right thing. You can either have the pump in the tank or have a secondary smaller tank that the pump sits in (probably not needed in a 10gal though). When you upgrade the tank you could use the 10gal as the secondary pump tank if you wanted!
To reduce the output you can tie a sponge around it. The kind of sponge you would use with a simple sponge filter should work perfectly.

Thanks for the welcome and response!


I'll head to the local fish store and see what they have (it's a PetSmart, so I'm not that hopeful...I'll try some shops in the city the next day when I'm at work), and will take a few measurements and photos for the connectors to make sure of sizes - the used hoses/connectors I received with the chiller I'll probably just throw away - I think it was previously used in a a salt water tank, and I don't really know what might be in them from before. Just going to get some new lines, cycle new water thru the chiller (clean it out) and get it ready for use.

I've jury rigged a 12v 120mm computer fan to a AC power source after digging around old computer stuff, and have it blowing across the top of the tank until the chiller is in place. Dropped the temp 6F, but this is in the middle of the night.



Guess my 15 year old daughter gets the privilege to spend more of her own money!