Brewery averts heat wave disaster at aquarium by donating industrial beer chillers

An aquarium in Falmouth has had to take the unusual step of using beer chilling equipment to cool its fish tanks after its marine inhabitants began to overheat in the sweltering temperatures. Falmouth Aquarium directors had to make an emergency call to St Austell Brewery after its fish began displaying some unusual behaviour as the temperature in their tanks shot up by a dangerous 3°C.

The aquarium's inhabitants, which include a lobster named Gary, only had a matter of time before they overheated and died according to marine biologist Chloe Kingston who works there. However, after an emergency call to the brewery, the oddly tried-and-tested method of using beer chilling equipment to cool the tanks has worked wonders. She said: "It's a massive relief, I was really worried when I realised our current chillers weren't coping.



"So far the fish are just looking a bit grumpy but they wouldn't be able to stand long-term exposure to these temperatures – especially with the hot spell coming up. What the has done is literally save our fish at the aquarium. We have an entire tropical reef system on our ground floor that wasn't coping with the heat, even though their water temperature is usually hot anyway, and we have our Cornish fish tanks that were really suffering because their water needs to be especially cool."

The brewery's technician, Andrew Ferguson, installed the now permanently donated system on Friday. He said: "St Austell Brewery was delighted to help out when we got the call from Falmouth Aquarium. I remember installing one of our cooling systems at the National Lobster Hatchery in Padstow over 10 years ago when the weather was really hot, but it's the first aquarium we've done."