What can I do if my aquarium gets too hot in the summer?

The best answer is to keep your room at a comfortable temperature with air conditioning.  Ambient room temperature has a tremendous impact on aquarium temperature.

Remember:  Never unplug your heater if it is functioning correctly.  Doing so can cause temperature fluctuation, which can be more of a problem than a slightly elevated temperature. 

To determine if your heater is the source of the problem, grasp it while it is underwater.  If your aquarium temperature is too warm and your heater feels like it is actively heating, then the thermostat is not working and telling the heater when to shut off.  You should replace your heater immediately.  Do not wait until tomorrow because the temperature fluctuation without a heater over the course of several hours can stress your fish and it may be fatal.

Before deciding to actively change the aquarium temperature, make sure that the fish are truly distressed.  If they are swimming around normally, don't worry too much.  Correct the problem gradually.

Whatever your course of action, never attempt to change the aquarium temperature too rapidly.  If it is too hot, allow the cooling process to take place slowly until it is at the correct temperature.  If it is dangerously high and your fish are swimming strangely, you may try to put ice cubes in plastic bags and float them in the aquarium.  However, be careful to keep an eye on the temperature so that it does not drop too quickly once it is in a safer range.

Temperature fluctuation commonly leads to outbreaks of ick.  This is seen often in spring and fall when house temperatures are fluctuating and heaters are stressed to keep up.

For continual problems with too much heat caused by pumps, lights, and direct sunlight, try putting a fan where it will blow directly over the water and if you have a sump, try leaving the doors of the stand open.  If you have lids, leave them open or remove them.  Never turn off your pumps!

Remember that the most common heat-related emergency is due to heater thermostats that have broken.  We cannot stress this enough: REPLACE YOUR HEATER ONCE A YEAR!  This may sound expensive, but it is usually less expensive than replacing all of your fish after your tank wipes out.

In general, you can use carbon or a non-organic resin such as Seachem's Purigen to pull out excess medications.

If you have dosed too much of a non-medicating element that cannot be removed from the water by a carbon or resin, a water change is the best thing to do.  Keep in mind - you might be radically altering other water parameters such as pH if you change too much water too fast, so we'd recommend starting with a 1/3 water change and then waiting a few hours and try another water change of about 1/2.

If someone accidentally added too much food, which can drastically change pH by lowering it, siphon it out.
 

First, get everything out of the tank and into another aquarium.  If you don't have another aquarium, get a large plastic tub like you would use to store sweaters in over the summer.  Be sure that you have a pump or air stone running to make sure that there is water movement that causes aeration.  Also, ensure that you have your heater in the tub and your filter rigged up so that you are getting bacterial filtration.  This makes sure that you don't get an ammonia build-up while your fish are in their temporary container.

Do not try to repair the aquarium.  Resell it as a reptile only aquarium.  Yes, we know that aquarium sealant exists, but it is a bad idea.  You cannot reseal an aquarium properly without an excessive amount of effort and time.  Silicone will not stick correctly to residual silicone.  If you put new silicone over a place where old silicone was leaking, you are guaranteed a leak in the future.  Murphy's Law applies here - it will happen when you are out of town for the weekend.

To reseal an aquarium correctly you would have to get every last molecule of silicone off of the glass and then start again. This means that you would have to cut apart all 5 panes of glass with a razor blade.  Next, you shave off the silicone, then scrub down the edges with steel wool (rinse, repeat; rinse, repeat; rinse, repeat; and so on) until you don't have any residual silicone.  There is no solvent to remove it.  Scrape, scrub, scrape, scrub, scrape, scrub, scrape, scrub, etc.  Getting the picture here?

Once you have labored for hours doing this, you are finally ready to reseal the aquarium.  Don't forget that it's not easy to line up all of those panes of glass at the exact same time, have a perfect bead of silicone on each join, and you must finish before the silicone dries.  Whew!

We recommend just buying a new glass aquarium and be done with it.  It's quick, easy, and it's already done for you - by professionals.