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Sudden climate changes! I'm afraid of the heat!

asprine

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Well, due to things out of my reach, probably global warming, who knows, the temperature in mexico city has been really high, and i mean REALLY high, I used to have my axies on aroom that had no sun, which made the tank have about 16° to 20° max. But now, the temp outside its 30°-32°C outside!!!! Which for a mexican spring is pretty hot, there's no clouds and there's sun all day! It's making the temperature in my tank to go up to 23° almost 24° the fatal temperature for axies I hear!! I need a few ideas on how to cool my tank, I'm just putting huge ice bottles in the tank but its really temporary, the tank goes down to like 20° for a few hours and then its 23° again in like 4 hours.

I reduced the tank's water level to a half, in my logic, less water will mean cool water for longer with the ice bottles not working on a big tank.

I'm concerned, the axies aren't stressed yet, they're eating but if you could give me ideas on how to cool this tank it would be greatly appreciated!

Ps. There's no AC systems on mexican houses, no need for it the temp is pretty much the same so AC is out of the formula here =(

THANKS!
 

Nathan050793

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Do you have a refridgerator? If you do, you could put your axolotls in some tupperware containers and keep them in the fridge until the heat wave passes.

Good luck! Maybe some others can give you better advice.
 

SludgeMunkey

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In this case more water is better. A higher volume of water will hold temperature stability much more than a lower one.

Depending on the size of your tank I would use frozen 1 liter soda bottles of water, rotated between tank and freezer to maintain temperature. I used a frozen one liter bottle for every 18.9 liters of tank water when I lived in California years ago.

Looking at the forecast for Mexico City for this week, It may be a good idea to refrigerate them until the weather cools off. Just remember you will need to do much more frequent water changes when they are fridged in small containers.



(on an unrelated note, are they actually referred to as "ajolote" or something else down there? My wife's family in Ciuidad Juarez had never heard of them so she could not provide me with an answer...;))
 

julesy

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Yep! We call them ajolotes here in Mexico but it just derivates from the spanish way of pronouncing and spelling nahuatl (Aztecs language) so its basically the same, Its how we spell it Mexico but in Spain sometimes they call it Mejico, or for example, Chocolate, another mexican word that adapted itself to the occidental abc... in nahuatl it was xocolatl, same with axolotl, thats a nahuatl word... some people call tadpoles ajolotes in a totally non correct use of the term :S

On the tank temperature, i could store one axie on the fridge, the thing is that my family uses the fridge so its pretty full all the time, the fridge isn.t that big, so is it safe if I put them in an eski with ice, each one on a separate container? Right now I put a fan on top of the tank, and the water temp is of 19C but if im complaining on global warming it wouldn't be wise to have that thing on all day, all week, all the time spring lasts... so thanks for the ideas i'll try them up and tell you how it went.
 

PanTech

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I was having trouble dealing with the heat the last couple weeks here in Canada! Hopefully this helps...

I keep my two juvenile axies in a 30 gallon tank usually 3/4 full of water. What worked for me was increasing the water level ( tank filled to the top) and rotating water bottles from the freezer to the tank.

For my 30 gallon tank I used 5, 1.5 liter water bottles. Filled them with dechloriated water and mixed it with aquarium salt. (saltwater has a lower freezing temperature, so it last longer/is more effective)

Leave 2 bottles in before leaving for work/ and replace with 2 others when returning from work.

If your using a screen top on your aquarium consider buyin a tiny fan and using it on the surface of the water. Might create some current...but not enough to stress your axies.
The one i got was about 4 inches Tall x 4 inches wide x 2 inches deep for 9,99 $CA at the hardware store

Another helpful thing is to check the temperature outside at night and open all windows if its cooler outside. Then closing them in the morning.

Hope some of this helps
Otherwise just send your axies on vacation to the fridge.:cool:
 
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