Well, I guess I should have seen this one coming.
Over the past couple of years, due to the hot summers, I had to buy a chiller unit for the axolotl tank to ensure that their water was kept cool enough (21C at most).
However, watching the news this morning and current advice includes a reduction in use of water sprinklers in the garden during the current hot spell, but what happens if the warm weather continues? What impact could this have on our fish?
All waste water from my tanks (apart from the brackish tanks) is used in the garden. I have a hose that attaches to a specific port on the external filters on my largest tanks, and water from smaller tanks is carried outside in dedicated 10L containers. I plan to continue like this as it would be silly not to use the waste water this way.
I'm less worried about the garden, and the possibility of a hosepipe ban, and more concerned about my tanks.
I will admit that I may have more than enough tanks (usually
currently
), but several of them are temperate rather than tropical, and when it gets very hot even the tropical tanks can be heading towards the very top end of their temperature range. I try to keep the rooms as cool as possible, closing curtains on the sunny side of the room, opening doors and windows on the cooler side of the house, running fans, and topping up evaporated water with RO, but I do use a lot of water, even with standard weekly water changes.
Where does this sort of situation leave us environmental responsibility-wise?
I've not really considered the amount of water I use until now, but a very quick review of tanks/volume, and I could easily be using >600L of water a week. Is this environmentally irresponsible during the current heatwave? Water test results are 0, 0, 40 (same as tap water), so should I reduce my water changes to perhaps closer to 20% a week?
What happens when our responsibility to our fish (an amphibians) clashes with the responsibility to reduce water usage, especially during this weather? What happens if we actually have a drought?
I think this might be quite an interesting topic for discussion.