Heatwave

The temps in my tanks are rising due to the heatwave. Thankfully it looks like it will be a cooler day today, but for the next one, how do you folks manage to keep temps within range in your tanks on days when it gets too warm?

Thanks for the link.

We're actually up in Scotland and it's nowhere near as hot as "down south", but even with my shades down and the windows on the north (cooler) side of the building cracked, it got warm in here. Had all the windows open overnight and then closed them except on the cool side of the building (the north) the next day, but it didn't help that much. We have a long southern exposure and huge windows in each room on that south wall.

What I used to do in California was get one of those gel cold packs (like you use for sore muscles) and lay it over the top of the reptile screen that I used as a tank lid during hot weather. And put a towel over the whole thing. It did actually help. Had to do the same thing for our hamster there, as it did get miserably hot quite often.

On days when our humidity there was normal (quite low), having a fan blowing across the top of the tank helped, too.  Unfortunately here it's so darned humid that although I've got the reptile screen over the small tank, and the lid lifted a bit and a fan blowing at the big tank, they both heated up even with the fan on. The smaller tank I was keeping at 72-74F and it got close to 80F. The fish seem ok still, but that's not really ideal. So I'm ordering some of the reusable cold packs, which should come in handy for the small tank (it's only 5 US gallons) if things heat up again. 

Not sure what to do about the big tank (60 litre), possibly lean some of the cold packs up against the side on one side? I can't take the lid all the way off as those silly fish like to jump. I've been using chopsticks across the corners and raising the lid up to sit on them (so there's a small gap) and opening the feeding port while having the fan aimed their way.   Not sure it did much.  I had been keeping that one at 77F anyway, and the additional volume of water took longer to react to the room temp, so it may not be that much of an issue unless we get several days in a row of heat.  I guess I could pull the rack out of the oven, lay a cool pack or two on it, and use it for the lid (with a towel over)....

Fingers are crossed that was all of "summer" we get here this year!