In my apartment I kept the AC at 70 always, here at home it's around 76 so that's a factor in itself. I went out and got a fan and it's been bringing the temp down quite a bit. I also got a digital thermometer for the time being until my controller comes in. Right now temp is at 78.6 which is not too bad. I think the reason why my reading was so high was because that was taken from 3'' into the water. I'll look into computer fans as a more compact way of keeping the temp down.