Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

Does anyone know of a easy and accurate way to cool a tank with out laying down $500+ for a chiller? I have a 110 gal tall with 8 t5 lights but only 4 of them are running atm cause of the heat. There is a sump as well with a submersiable pump.

what are you currently doing to cool it? What temp does it run throughout the light cycle?

I'm running only 1/2 the lights and for shorter periods of time. it's running about 84F atm but i can get it down to around 80 at night. i have also started keeping it cooler in the house but it seems to have little effect.

You can leave the canopy hood open at all times, put some fans in the hood and run the lights twice a day (run them for 4-5 hour in the morning and run them for another 4-5 hours at night). That is what I am having to do.

well not sure what you have now, but you can place fans in the canopy, place fans over the sump........ Run the lights at night ( assuming the house is cooler at night ). Lots of things to do. I doubt you need a chiller with t5's unless your house is really hot ( and winter is right around the corner) or you have massing inline pumps heating the water.

All my pumps are underwater, no canopy, i am going to add a second fan to the lights though. the light are hung about 6" over the tank. I'll post some pics and soon as i get my camera hooked up to my laptop

Here are the pics as promised Just the antic lights are on atm.

I actually have an old chiller for sale if anyone wants it. It is a West Coast Aquatics 1/5 inline.

I know it needs work, I think the thermal switch has gone bad. However it is all standard coke machine parts or so WCA told me a while back. If interested I can try to email some pics.

Send me some pics please. mhughes401@adelphia.net

Sounds like your heat might be coming from underwater pumps....how many are you running and what size and type....Also what is your room temp.....you should only need one small fan in the canopy to pull the light heat out...too many and you will evaporate way too much water....also make sure your heater is not coming on.....again it sounds more like pump heat....

tbmoore wrote:Sounds like your heat might be coming from underwater pumps....how many are you running and what size and type....Also what is your room temp.....you should only need one small fan in the canopy to pull the light heat out...too many and you will evaporate way too much water....also make sure your heater is not coming on.....again it sounds more like pump heat....

I agree wit Big T, With the open lighting system you should not really have a heat problem from the lights unless the house is unusually warm.
how much water evaporates a day?

Take the heater out and see what happens just in case its running on. If you are only getting down to 80F at night, then you don't need it anyways.

Since you are getting up to 84F during the day, then the problem IS the lights or a temperature spike in your house (probabaly not since it's been cool outside). Just add a fan to cool the air between the lights and the water. This will increase evaporation, but that is the whole idea. If you put the fan on a timer (corresponding to the lights), then the temperature might very well stablize from day to night.

BTW... do you have a glass top? If so... just take it off and skip the fan. It's preventing evaporation.

Another idea if you want to keep the glass top is to put a fan on a timer in the sump.

When we first got our setup, we had the same issue. Come to find out it was a faulty heater.

I would guess that it's your room temp. I keep my house at 72 so that my tank will stay at 80 durring the day. And that's with the hood opened up.

Fans,fans more fans will resolve your problem!!!!!!