Hot enough for ya???

[neptune9824]

I have been having a heck of a time with my tank. 175 gal and with the past weekend being above 30 degrees every I cannot keep my temp below 88 degrees. On saturday when it was +36 my temp was not even reading on the thermometer. I have been freezing milk jugs of water and nothing seems to help. Believe it or not i have not actually lost anything yet so thats a good thing. I might have to try fans on the water though, that seemed like a good idea.

[danny zubot]

What about people with their tanks in their basments? How much cooler do your tanks stay? I can't wait until I get a new home with a basement just for that! Well, and a possible fish room.

[Reefer Rob]

Even with fans, the lights off and the skimmer off my tank still got over 84 on Sat. Before next summer I'm moving my tank to the lowest level of our split level (unless Santa brings me that 225). A couple of my Candy Cane heads have bleached, otherwise all is still OK. Sure hope we've seen the last of that!!

Rob

[Palster]

My tank is in my basement and I live in Kelowna. My thermometer has been showing outdoor highs of around 37 or 38 degrees Celsius the last couple of days. With the tanks in the basement and central A/C the highest my tank temperature has gotten is 82 degrees Fahrenheit with lights running all day. I often close the A/C vents in the basement so that the upstairs gets the maximum cooling and allow the cool air from upstairs to settle into the basement and this seems to work well since the basement stays much cooler anyways.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

In a cool ground floor suite, my unheatered reef tanks stay around 78F normally in the summer, but during the heat wave it was around 82-83F with fans going. That's not bad considering the max. room temp hit 83-84F on Saturday, which was still a lot cooler than outside. Sunday, I was able to leave my MH lights on their regular timer schedule & only shut off for a few afternoon hours on Sat. & Friday.

Anthony

[jgoldsney]

Dont know if it would help a tank but is sure is a cool Idea
http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~gmilburn/ac/

[b_james]

Originally Posted by jgoldsney

Dont know if it would help a tank but is sure is a cool Idea
http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~gmilburn/ac/

Hey jgoldsney, nice to talk to you again..

Great link, Actually if you were to coild the copper tubes around a 'very thin' walled pipe that is food safe and connect the thin wall pipe to a small pump for more contact time with the coil, you have just created a very crude exchanger. The theory is that the heat from the tank water slowly pasing through the coil section will be pull out. Essentualy you are creating a simple emmersion chiller. Here is a link to a cheap home made chiller used by people that brew their own beer.

http://www.allaboutbeer.com/homebrew/equip/chiller.html

[b_james]

Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic

but during the heat wave it was around 82-83F with fans going. That's not bad considering the max. room temp hit 83-84F on Saturday, which was still a lot cooler than outside.
Anthony

Another example of why I believe Central AC should be more efficient that employing chillers and fans - try adding up all the wattages of equipment being used to cool your tank. Also consider the other effects such as additional heat gain from the fan and chiller motors. Using fans to blow air across the surface of the water to cool is somewhat counter productive. Evaporative cooling cools by reducing the latent heat through evaporation - therfore by accellerating evaporation rates you will increase cooling, however as you increase evaporation you increase humidity levels in your space, therefore making it seem hotter and making it even more dificult to cool your home. Unless your RH is very low (very dry air) in oder to cool your home you will need to dehumidify.

Too complicated.... Simply put, if the room environment is kept at a constant cool temp, your tank temp should equallize maybe a few degrees higher without evaporating accessive amounts of water. My 2 ton system consumes about 6 amps - it keeps my house and tank comfortable.

[chwkreefer]

I totally agree. The interior of my home at present 71 degree F. Outside it's 30 degrees C. My tank is 77 degrees F. Everyone's comfortable and I'm paying a dollar a day to keep my house at that temp. I love my heat pump.

Bill

Originally Posted by b_james

Another example of why I believe Central AC should be more efficient that employing chillers and fans - try adding up all the wattages of equipment being used to cool your tank. Also consider the other effects such as additional heat gain from the fan and chiller motors. Using fans to blow air across the surface of the water to cool is somewhat counter productive. Evaporative cooling cools by reducing the latent heat through evaporation - therfore by accellerating evaporation rates you will increase cooling, however as you increase evaporation you increase humidity levels in your space, therefore making it seem hotter and making it even more dificult to cool your home. Unless your RH is very low (very dry air) in oder to cool your home you will need to dehumidify.

Too complicated.... Simply put, if the room environment is kept at a constant cool temp, your tank temp should equallize maybe a few degrees higher without evaporating accessive amounts of water. My 2 ton system consumes about 6 amps - it keeps my house and tank comfortable.

[Chaloupa]

I'm soooo very jealous that you have a heat pump!!! That is on our "to do" list over the next 2 years. And then I won't have to have chillers and fans and more fans ... and issues (like today) where you plan for a very hot day, turn on the fan over the 120g and leave...only to come home later to a tank at 74 (or 21 for us Canadians!) that is on the chilly side cause the house didn't get hot....Heat Pump here we come...one day.