East facing Windowsill Fishtank

tanyalbeck

Hi,
We have just moved house and the only place to put our 60l tank is on a big bay windowsill which is east facing. There are 2 potential issues:
1) there is a street light right outside and the curtain track is broken so I can't close the curtains/ protect them from bright light. does this matter or should I put some kind of backing/ board on it overnight? and

2) The tank and fish look so incredibly beautiful on the windowsill without any backing etc... you can see right through the clear water and really see the fish beautifully! There are net curtains to filter out some of the harsh light, and I have stopped leaving the fish tank's light on so much during the day (how long should it be on for?) to compensate. The heater in the tank has a thermostat so should in theory avoid letting it overheat. We have a few plants in as well. Can I just leave it and clean any algae off the glass as and when? The main thing is that the fish are safe and happy.

It helps that we spend much more time watching the fish than the TV now that it's in the centre of the room on the windowseat.

Thanks!
Tanya

Fire_Fox

Does that window catch the morning sun? If so you might want to test the temperature of your tank on a few warmer days. A thermostat can cut out the heater but it can't turn off the sun.

Froglet

Not only willl it possibly overheat on very sunny days but you will get a lot of algae growing very quickly on the glass.Unless you have an algae loving catfish you will struggle.They will also not like the street light shining in all night.

But, as Firefox points out,the rise and fall of the temperature is the most worrying factor and could ultimately affect the health of the fish.If it were me i would shade the tank untill you can get curtains up.

tanyalbeck

we have 2 'bottom feeder' fish that hoover up anything greeny looking... not catfish, but I think they do a similar job!
Thanks all...
Tanya

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

If they're plecos, you might wish to reconsider having them - they get HUGE and gravitate towards eating the other inhabitants before they die of overcrowding.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

If they're plecos, you might wish to reconsider having them - they get HUGE and gravitate towards eating the other inhabitants before they die of overcrowding.

plecs are not known for eating live fish.

as the plecs grow, the will need a larger tank, you may heared of the wives tale a plec (or fish) will grow as big as the tank, wrong a plec will grow out of a tank and get verry stressed if it hasnt got the room to manouvere.

plecs are not fast eaters so algea will become a problem infront of a window and they dont just eat algea, they enjoy a veriety of different things to eat, like mellon, cucumber, holiday feeding tablets, prawns, blood worm, pellets, flakes.

you will have trouble regulating the tanks water temp in the summer, spring. and if theres a slight draft in the winter autumn it will have trouble getting upto temp.

cover the back at noght untill a curtain is erected.

tank only requires 4-6 hours of light unless you have live plants.

tanyalbeck

Thanks again. The 'sucker' fish or 'bottom feeders' are about 4-5cm in length right now and seem to enjoy eating anything green! All the fish seem happy with having the tank open... although it's on the window it rarely gets direct/ strong sunlight. I do put backing on at night to protest them from the streetlights.

Thanks so much again for all your help!
Tanya

rising_from_the_ashes

Great they're enjoying it Tanya but what have you done to stop the water over-heating on warm / hot days?

Sorry but can't see that you've addressed this / responded to the comments made by others and IMHO it's something that could be a real problem.

ETA sorry see you say it rarely gets direct sunlight - however, if it does, the water temp may rise quite quickly.

tanyalbeck

the thermometer in the tank is always nicely in the 'green' good zone, so i make sure I really check it a few times a day now to make sure. we haven't had any really hot days here yet although there's been a few hours of intense afternoon sunshine which doesn't seem to have affected the temp. Either the net curtains block a lot of heat/ light, or the thermometer / thermostat/ heater regulate it particularly well. as the thermostat is part of the heater I can only assume that if the water gets warmer due to external sources (the sun) that it stops heating the water as much to compensate.

I'm going to leave it where it is for now, and keep a careful eye on how things go.
Tanya

Froglet

A heater will only stop it getting cooler.It certainly cannot stop it getting hotter.You must go out sometimes? In a couple of hours of intense sun you could literally fry those poor fish.And the weather is due to get pretty hot soon.

Just checking it won't stop them suffering,as you cannot cool it down rapidly when it gets too hot.Sudden variations of temperature,up or down, will stress the fish to such a degree that they will get sick and most likely develop whitespot.Then you really will have problems.