Man it's getting hot in here!!!

[bbehring]

Well I have my 54 corner bowfront with megaflow overflow feeding a 20 gal sump plumbed with and in sump mag 5 return pump. I'm running a panworld 50px-x in a closed loop with om 4 way and also have 2 skimmers. One deltec HOB and a urchin in sump with a maxi jet 1200. Lighting is 24" 250w mh w/ 2x24w T5. Sump also has a small fuge with DSB and cheato with 24w pc running about 9 hours opp main photo period. I run my mh about 6 hours/day and the t5s about 10 hours/day. I also have a small minijet pump running my phos ban reactor. Anyways, I am dealing with heat issues and have been from day 1. I have an adjustible 4 - 5" dia fan unit in my (open top) canopy blowing across the water. Even though the fans are adjustible, I have them set to the highest (fastest) level. I also have a small 2 - fan unit on my sump and a small 4 - fan unit pointing down on my panworld pump. I have all fans controlled by my RK2 unit via temp control. Fans turn on at 81 deg and turn off at 80 deg. I was thinking of switching out my mag 5 with an eheim 1260 and my panworkd 50px-x with the velocity T4 due mainly to heat issues but also for noise. My fans run about 70% of the day, including from time to time even when the lights are off at night. I have central ac and keep it set to 79-80 deg. As another option, I was also thinking of moving to a jbj 1/5 hp chiller and keeping the pumps as installed but thought trying the mag5 / eheim switchout as the fist option. Any thoughts/recommendations?

 

[krisfal]

A few thoughts on things you could try without changing any equipment.

To me it seems as your temp controller for your fan has a pretty tight range, I believe a 3 degree temp range would not be detrimental at all (my tank usually varies 3-4 degrees) maybe set the controller to not turn off until 79 degrees and your fans might run less at night.

Also are all your fans on the controller? I run the fan over my sump 24/7 as I figure that pump is a constant heat source and therefore needs the extra cooling.

You mention that you have a fan blowing across the water in your canopy, but is there any where for the hot air to escape easily? In my 130 I use 4 fans, 2 blowing across the water and 2 pulling the hot air out of the canopy, the 2 exhaust fans pull out a lot of heat, in fact I had to move a smoke detector out of the area on that end of the conopy because it kept going off and the alarm monitoring company was getting a bit irritated with me. I run all fans in my canopy on the same timers as my lights in the winter and run 2 of those fans 24/7 throughout the summer. I hope to have the fans on a temp contoller by next summer because this summer when the nights would unexpenctantly really cool off, my tank would drop to 77 at night with my current method.

Just a few thoughts.

 

[mfinn]

Also, if you decide to switch to the Velocity T-4 pump you will continue with the heat problems.
They are known for adding heat to a tank.
However, they do run absolutely silent. I have 3 on my 240 and I love em, but I do use a chiller.
You should look into a chiller, espescially if you keep your ac set at around 80. ( seems high?)

 

[bbehring]

I have the 4-5" fans running on my open canopy. 3 the air in across the tank water the 4th blows the air out. The air naturally escapes through the open top. There are also some small opening on the sides of the canopy. The fan on my sump is tied to the temp controller at the same 81 on 80 off. I don't like leaving the fan to my sump on 24/7 as it is a bit on the loud side, even though it's under my tank in the stand. I will try the 3 deg temp setting. I keep my air set at 78-80 which is fine. My electric bill is running 400/month during the summer, so setting lower is not an option. I am looking to upgrade my ac system this coming spring as it's about 15 years old. I think I'll make the temp setting change and switch out the mag 7 for the eheim. I might also just shut off the mj 1200 running the urchin. I might also replace the internal Freedom flow filter/skimmer with the rio 2500 with a deltec HOB 600 MCE skimmer. If I leave the ligths off, the tank temp still creeps up and kicks the fans on. During the day when the MHs are on the fans run almost continuously but the temp doesn't go over 82.5