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Does any one have open topped tanks in their house and if so do they have a problem with damp/smell?

No problems with odor. But I have only freshwater tanks, and they are mostly planted. Saltwater open tanks may cast a sea-smell to the room, fyi, depending on the tank and its care.

Fishrooms that I visit and have open top tanks tend to be very humid. The owners usually talk of having a fair amount of evaporation.

I have (and had) no problems with open-topped tanks (neither with smell nor with evaporation), but I have to qualify that I live in a tropical climate, and with the humidity hovering in the 95% or more range, additional humidity from the tanks would be the least of my problems (I have enough problems dealing with natural humidity already). I did add a fan to cool down one of my tanks (the other problem with living in the tropics is the heat), and that has increased evaporation significantly to the point that I have to top the water off in the tank every day.

I have a few open tanks and a few closed ones. I had some problems with humidity from the open tanks until I remowed the heaters, now I keep all open tanks at room tempature and humidity is not a problem.

open topped tanks carry another quite different risk however; the possibility of you stepping on a dead or dying slippery fish next to the tank when you're still half asleep stumblin to the coffee machine......

not good for the fish in question.
if the fish turns out a spined catfish, quite bad for you also; getting a barbed slimy pectoral spine wedged in the flesh at 1" deep of a bare footsole is a fairly fast way of gettin yourself shipped off to the hospital and you bending over with the pants at kneelevel for a tetanus shot or something.

I'm not so happy with open tanks.

I tried to make the tank im build at the moment open topped but the evaporation was horrendous. I was losing over 8 litres every 3 days and running the risk of letting the sump dry up. Beacause this tanks not at my home and I work weekends I was worried about leaving it from friday to monday morning so its getting evaporation covers and a lid to mount the lights in.

Doesn't it depend on the temperature difference between the tank and the room, the surface area of the tank, and the amount of surface agitation. I know a lot of fish houses heat the air instead of the tanks - in my small open topped tanks I use the heater to set a minimum temp 23-24C - both the room and the tanks get warmer in summer, with no problems. It would be interesting to know the temp difference between room and tank when Gozza had problems.

I agree with sidguppy - I never would have guessed algae eating shrimps could jump out.

The temperatur differences are quite small, room temperature average is 21C tanks are at 25C. Because of the design of the filter system there is a lot surface agitation through out the entire system sspecially in the rather small sump (which probably needs to be bigger)

3 of my 11 tanks have lids (though 3 of them need setting up)

i've never lost any of my mbuna to jumping, but i have lost 1 frog 1 swordtail and 1 flying fox.

i dont know what my room temp is (every1 else complains how hot my bedroom is) whereas its too cold for me. (6 tanks in there) and those loose about 2" a week in evapouration. the tanks are between 25 and 27

the tanks downstairs are at 28-29 and i loose about 1.5" on the open tank and negligable amounts on the covered 1.

worth noting though. when the heat wave came the tanks with lids overheated and the others did not. i removed coverglasses from the 1 and that helped lower temps in the 1 tank (though it did lead to filter pipe sliping (held in place by coverglass) and dumping 10-20l of water on the floor in the middle of the night. thank god i have laminate floors and i could hear it)