Ventilation Dilema.

[sleeman]

The cabinet is nearing completion, and I am still trying to figure out the best way to ventilate the heat. I have several options as the cabinet is built into the wall. The one thing I don't want to do is vent it out the front of the cabinet because of aesthetic reasons. I have attached a picture as well. I have two 110v 4 inch fans. I plan on running one across the halides, and the other to vent the hot air out of the cabinet. My original idea was to put in a dryer vent at the top and vent the air outside, but at -30C there will be a lot of cold air flowing back in at night when the lights and fans are off. My next idea is to mount the fan up high to a 4" solid vent and run it down through the floor into the boiler room below in the winter. Because the tank is sitting in a knock out in the house I could drill a 4" hole out the bottom and vent outside in the summer. This way I can put a couple 2" holes in the floor and draw cool air up into the tank area from the basement. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Other than to go buy a chiller. :biggrin:

Here is the piture of the tank so far.
http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/747tank1.jpg?5636

[UnderWorldAquatics]

venting the tank outside with an exhaust vent instead of a dryer vent would be good, exhaust vents have flaps in them so they only let air out and dont draw air in, otherwise your just heating your house in the summer when you really need to get rid of the heat, high end exhaust vents even have rubber seals to not let any air in at all. Thats how I vent large tanks and shark tanks, it works great, keeps house humidity down to, as I vent canopy and cabinent outside

[sleeman]

Where do you get the exhaust vents from? Are you talking about the vent that would go onto a range hood? I would imagine there would be a minimum CFM to open the spring loading.

Cheers,

Al

[UnderWorldAquatics]

alot of them dont have any springs, they are kept shut by gravity, its a light weight door that opens one way from air pressure, you can plumb both of your fans to exhaust out of one of those exhaust vents... just attach a "Y" pipe to the exhaust vent, and attach flex ventilation pipe from the fans to the "Y" pipe. you can get them at any place that sells heating and airconditioning ventilation equipment, I believe that revy and home depot carry them too.

[sleeman]

Perfect, thanks for the input.

Al