water temperature

[Damsel13]

My water temperature in my 55 gal. has been high for quite some time. I got the idea of putting frozen bottles (everything is RO/DI ) in my (mini) sump from this website the other day and it has made a world of difference. All my animals seem to be less stressed (and me too!).

The temp. in my home is only 76F but with lights on the tank and no fans it gets hot. My water temperature was getting up to 83F for over 4 hours. Just adding the frozen water to the sump has made a HUGE difference. Thanks again to Reef Frontiers.

Side note: my anemones although still somewhat white have grown full mouths and look pretty darn happy and are eating. ( I was trying to feed them too big of pieces of food and/or they weren't ready to eat) anyway they are eating mysis w/vitamins and brine w/spirolina for the time being.

 

[Scooterman]

You would be amazed at how just one fan blowing across the water surface would help! Glad you have it down, this time of year is always difficult to keep them temps down.

 

[Frankie]

I have to agree. If a chillers not in the budget then a cheap fan across the water surface is your next best answer. It sure beats having to change out ice bottles every day.

 

[Damsel13]

Will figure out a fan deal. I would not want any jumpers........

 

[Katchupoy]

Deb what do you mean by jumpers? what fish do you have?

 

[Damsel13]

4 blue green chromis. A very healthy yellow tang (small child hand size 4"?) Coral beauty, and......the jumper? a small (dime sized) yellow watchman gobie. The others are: 2 scarlet hermit crabs, one very small green mantis (no comments please) and about a dozen big/medium snails plus the fingernail snails that don't get eaten.

 

[mmkeeper]

Use can use the fan across the top of the sump or tank.

 

[NC2WA]

Another way to chill the water, is to place ice cubes in a zip loc bag and float it in your sump.

 

[Damsel13]

I liked the idea of getting the water cooler like from a water service company and running a hose through there somehow but I am definatley not a DIY kind of girl and my husband thinks the fish store is the place you go to buy fish to EAT! (Which is ok but I just wish sometimes he thought of the fish store as a place to go buy WATER!!!!!!!!!!)
ok mini rant over.

 

[Scooterman]

I got a large clip on fan at our local department store & just clipped it to some wood in the hood & it is adjustable enough to set it blowing across the water surface, works well cost about $8 buks!

 

[Krish]

I've used the fan across the water surface (tank and sump) and worked great!! Worth a shot

 

[DonW]

I liked the idea of getting the water cooler like from a water service company and running a hose through there somehow but I am definatley not a DIY kind of girl and my husband thinks the fish store is the place you go to buy fish to EAT! (Which is ok but I just wish sometimes he thought of the fish store as a place to go buy WATER!!!!!!!!!!)
ok mini rant over.

It doesnt work anyways, the fans are a great option. Evaporation may be a issue if you are buying water?

Don

 

[theJ]

we have a small DC fan called an 'o2' (walmart/lowes special $15). It sits right on top of our sump and blows with enough force to move the water below it. This will easily drop our tank 4 degrees even on the hottest of days. Also, it is controlled by a reefkeeper 2 controller, and turns on @ 79.5, and off at 78. tank sits right between those two at all times, -as long as we have the AC in the house on-. The AC in the house plays a huge part in keeping the tank cool. We try to keep house temp right around 72, so that fan has good cold air to blow over the sump. If the temp in the house is high, fans wont work as well, but they are better than nothing.

 

[Damsel13]

Ok fan it is!! Thank you all so much for the help.

 

[jamiehill]

I liked the idea of getting the water cooler like from a water service company and running a hose through there somehow but I am definatley not a DIY kind of girl and my husband thinks the fish store is the place you go to buy fish to EAT! (Which is ok but I just wish sometimes he thought of the fish store as a place to go buy WATER!!!!!!!!!!)
ok mini rant over.

It doesnt work anyways, the fans are a great option. Evaporation may be a issue if you are buying water?

Don

This does work. I bought a mini-fridge off of CraigsList a while back and converted it into a little chiller. It has been working great at pulling my temp down. I also had been plagued with the 83 degree water problems due to the heat of the last few weeks (not so much the last few days though).

I drilled holes in the back of the fridge and got some flexible 1/2" PVC and wound up about 75' inside of the fridge. I am using a Rio pump to run water from my sump over to the fridge and back. So far, everything is working great. I am using my ReefKeeper to control the Rio pump so that it only runs water through if the temp gets above 80.

 

[DonW]

This does work. I bought a mini-fridge off of CraigsList a while back and converted it into a little chiller. It has been working great at pulling my temp down. I also had been plagued with the 83 degree water problems due to the heat of the last few weeks (not so much the last few days though).

I drilled holes in the back of the fridge and got some flexible 1/2" PVC and wound up about 75' inside of the fridge. I am using a Rio pump to run water from my sump over to the fridge and back. So far, everything is working great. I am using my ReefKeeper to control the Rio pump so that it only runs water through if the temp gets above 80.

Your success is very rare, folks have been trying this for years without success. I couldnt get it to work with a chest freezer running at -5F and 500 ft of poly line in block of ice. Whats the secret?

Don

 

[edwing206]

I would like to know too.

 

[LTRN]

I was having the same issue, and it got really bad when our a/c went out on the bottom floor and the outside temp was 90+. What I did was buy a fan and used it to blow over top of the light which has kept it cooler, while keeping the versa tops flipped open. My temp dropped 4-5 degrees by doing this and I didn't have the water evap problem. I still use it even though our a/c is fixed, or else the temp from the light gets too hot. I got the fan from wal-mart and it sits under the canopy perfectly (with mild adjustment) and it works wonderfully. I highly recommend this.

I am not sure if I should use the versa tops or not because of not letting the full spectrum of light through, but I'll deal with that when I am ready for corals and such.

Hope this helps.

 

[sc18702]

I tried the fan approach last night. It lowered my water temperature to just 77 degrees this morning. It was definitely cooler in the North East yesterday but the tank temp was 81 when i clipped it on around 8 pm. I'm curious to see the temp after a light cycle today. I also lowered the fan speed from high to low this morning but it is only a cheap 6 inch $10 fan. It might take some tweaking but it looks like this will solve my temp problems through the Summer. I will likely just keep the fan on the same light cycle as my metal halides so that I do not get too much fluctuation during the day.

 

[Damsel13]

Thanks jamiehill. For now I am going to work with the fan idea due to noise and space but in the future..........hehehe.

My tank is (oh my gosh) at least 17 years old but not running in my house the whole time and the canopy is only about 5-6" tall and I am not going to drill it. The back is open somewhat but I am thinking I don't have a lot of options when it comes to a fan. Evaporation I can deal with _ fan falling in the tank I can't. So what do you all think about those retrofit fans ? Could I use one of those somehow? My canopy is shiney black and really hard to drill through without cracking etc.
Grrr. Yea I know get a new tank.....not bummer