Tank Temp Driving me nuts!

[balakoth]

Well its come down to it. I have to find out a easy way to Move a friggen fish tank. Right now its in the front room where it seems to get the hotest. With the Heater off, and a fan blowing to it not to mention lights off, I got home this morning to see my Tank bordering 90 degrees. This is happening alto often here in the summer.

Im concidering moving it back to the room where the sun never hits and it stays EXCEPTIONALY much cooler. Im assuming my major problem is ambient room tempurature. I think the front room is fluxing between 80 to 85 degrees right now. I even had a huge 24 inch fan sitting on top of the tank blowing into the canopy and couldnt get it to drop much further than 85. That fan blew out so now im resorting to forzen water bottles for the time being.

I live in Washington so it only gets this way a few months out of the year, but with your thousands of dollar investment I still cant decide if its worth a chiller for those few months (plus the Metal halides I will be getting soon) or just moving it to the back room with some air circulation.


Id have to guess the temp difference from front room to back room is at least 10 to 20 degrees,.


PLease hand out some suggestions or comments, this fluxing cannot be good for my tank inhabitants and im trying all I can to keep it stable. These last few days of constant sunshine have been hectic on my tank and myself. (Not to mention my GF whos watching me get really mad over this whole thing)



TIA



- Joe

[dgosho]

With the hot days we have been having in portland lately, i have seen my tank hit 90 as well. I have one fan in my hood and it usually does a good job.

I mentioned the problem to woody and he said, "go to Fred Meyer, buy a $10 clip-on fan and point it at your sump, leave it running 24/7.

Well, i found a fan at fred meyer for 7 bucks and clipped it to my stand and pointed it at my sump/refugium.

Would you believe that leaving it running 24/7 got the tank too cold? I turn it off at night now.

For the last few days my tank has only gone up to 84.

[galleon]

Well Joe, if you like where your tank is now, and you're getting halides soon, I'd say that a chiller would be a very good investment. Personally, I'm biased. I'm the kind of person that likes to be able to control any potentially dangerous variable (temperature is a perfect example) possible and not leave them to chance.

[Bingo]

After my tank hit 92 and my cleaner shrimp died, I bought an Air conditioner for my whole house. The tank now stays around 83.

Brett

[balakoth]

Ive always thought about a chiller, esp with going with MHs. Problem is Im just now starting to setup my Sump system, which would then allow me to use a chiller.

I wish I Could say a clip on fan would help. But like I said I had a HUGE Fan pointing into my canopy and pumping out so much hair i could bake a potatoe on it and still couldnt drop it that much. (The room was still hot) If the room the tnak is in is 85 to 90 the fan is just blowing in 85 degree air, which doesnt seem like it would do much good.


So until I can pull out 600 dollars (at least) for a Chiller after Ive spent alot on a sump system, Im running out of options besides moving the tank.


Here is a pic of my Torch Coral this morning. Thisis hte worst its looked in the 5 months ive had it. Are those holes (If you can see them in this pic) a mouth to the coral? Or something bad happening to my Torch. Its never looked this way before and the only change in parameters is my temperature problem.


BTW my Frozen water bottles.... Unfrozen and warm in 10 mins. So much for that idea

[balakoth]

COuld anyone point me into the direction of looking for an affordable (I know thats a funny word in this hobby) chiller? I assume I would need some sort of Controller to manage the heater and chiller to keep from getting some odd fluxes even more so than I am now?

Never seen much info on this, but I know a few of you out there who use them and any info wouold be much appreciated.



- Joe

[semajftw]

I wish I Could say a clip on fan would help. But like I said I had a HUGE Fan pointing into my canopy and pumping out so much hair i could bake a potatoe on it and still couldnt drop it that much. (The room was still hot) If the room the tnak is in is 85 to 90 the fan is just blowing in 85 degree air, which doesnt seem like it would do much good.

Joe, the fan will still be helping, even if it is blowing 85 degree air at it. From what I understand the purpose of the air blowing across the water surface is to increase evaporation which allows the water to cool. It is the evaporation that cools the tank. Are you pointing the fan at the canopy or is the fan blowing across the water surface? If it is possible you might want to consider opening the canopy and having the fan blow directly across the water surface. (If this isn't what you are doing). But then again, this is not a permanant solution just a temp fix until you can find a chiller.

Just my $.02
-James

[balakoth]

James,
The way my canopy is setup I have a section that allowed me to blow a large amount of air onto the waters surface and it would vent out through my power cord holes and the cracks in my canopy (DIY). Right now I have my canopy top open and a face blowing across the top of the canopy with one Smart Lamp over my Torch (He doesnt look to happy) sitting on a piece of glass.

Its down to 85 now, but its not budging from that,

-joe

[balakoth]

James,
The way my canopy is setup I have a section that allowed me to blow a large amount of air onto the waters surface and it would vent out through my power cord holes and the cracks in my canopy (DIY). Right now I have my canopy top open and a face blowing across the top of the canopy with one Smart Lamp over my Torch (He doesnt look to happy) sitting on a piece of glass.

Its down to 85 now, but its not budging from that,


PS: I have two Pixie Bobcats , and leaving the Canopy top open constantly is a definate no no. The Male has already at the beginning of my Reefing Adventure tried to jump uptop onto the canopy when the lid was open. Very funny to watch him try and scrable out. Needles to say I dont think hes every jumped up there again (wether its closed or not :P) But id hate to take the risk.

-joe

[R1Bill]

Joe,

as long as you have a skimmer and lots of circulation to keep your water aerated, I wouldn't worry until my tank gets above 87. In fact when my fish had ick, I kept it at 87 for several weeks with no problems. And, I've been diving in temps of 89 and all the reef looks good.

My tank drop 2-4 degrees below ambient by blowing a small fan on the sump but the air is really dry here in CA. Of course it evaporates up to 5 gallons/day.

What if you run the fan 24/7 and turn the lights on during the late night when it cools down?

Good Luck!

Bill

[fliberdygibits]

I have a tank in my living room and was running into not only a heat problem, but algae blooms cause it was across the room from a big picture window. I put a fairly dark tint on the window about 4 months ago and have not had a problem since. It cut ambient room temp by about 10 degrees and I can still see out of my window without difficulty.

HTH

[balakoth]

Actually it does fit my situation Our window has a 45 Degree angled window ABOVE it which is not covered by shades. We have recently rigged up a cover over it to see if that would help with the Heat problems. Unfortunately the tank was still reaching 90 degrees. And the house is still burning up. That side of the house recieves all of the sunlight from the East as the sunrises from 5 am to 12 and then its already baking inside the house.

I keep saying house.. haha I live in an Apartment, when we do get a house our silly tanks gonna be in the wall! Away from every window known to man.


Thanks for the input though!

- Joe

[Brooke]

Just a thought..sometimes faulty pumps or powerheads can cause excess heat. You might try turning them off one by one and see if there is one that is making a big heat jump....if so, replace it.

I'd go invest $100 bucks in a window AC unit for that room. That would help lots!!
Plus, you wouldn't be sweating while enjoying the tank.

HTH-
Brooke

[Rick O]

Is it safe to assume that your apartment doesn't have AC? You may have mentioned this before but I forgot. Otherwise I can't see how the tank got that hot.

Before you go to the trouble to move the tank consider that the room it's in may be hotter because of the tank. And if you move it the other room may become the hot room.

Normally I'm a proponent of lots of fans for cooling but in your case a chiller might be in order. But before you spend all of that money try James' suggestion and point some fans at the water's surface. Evaporative cooling does much more than just blowing the hot air away from the canopy.

[fishinchick]

I run my AC for the house and keep it at 82 here in sunny southern california. Something that DOES help is keep a few 2 litre bottles (like for soda) 3/4 full of water in the freezer. When the tank gets hot, drop one into the sump and the water flow will go over the bottle. Make sure also that when you go to drop that in your sump you rinse it off each time you put it into the sump AND when you put it back into your freezer - bacteria being what it is n stuff.

It works great!! I know.

HTH