Best way to cool tanks!

[cdeakle]

I keep seeing people write on here to put ice in bags and to float them. I really hate this idea and thought i would share what I have been doing for awhile now.

I have taken a few 2-liter soda bottles and rinsed them out. Place some water in them and then cap off and freeze them.

When my tank starts to over heat I just lay one of them in my sump and it works like a charm. If you don't have a sump just float in your aquarium.

I like this better because the bottle wont leak water into your aquarium. Just keep enough on standby to cylce through and have enough for the otheres to refreeze. Also dont make the mistake I did and filled the bottles with too much water and have them EXPLODE in your freezer. Was pretty funny to have 4 of them burst. Grabbed my glock and had to search my place untill I realized it was the freezer and not anyone shooting lol......

 

[Anonymous]

I won't call it "best," but for emergency, it sure beat nothing at all. For people that do topping offs, you can freeze the top off water, and just add the ice directly to the sump without the soda bottle. Be forewarned that without the bottle, the ice going to melt a lot faster, and so don't add to much at once.

You can see the cooler, less dense (due to lack of salt in the ice) water because its refractive index is different from the rest of the water... 8)

 

[Len]

Good ol' fans work Of course, chillers work too if you can dish out the dough

 

[cdeakle]

I should have named the topic better, more like:

"Best way to chill your tank in a hurry if your a cheap $%$#@@like me!"

I learned the hard way this summer with tank temps. My local store(there awesome) advised the 2-liter bottle trick. No possible water contamination that way.

It doesn't normally get to hot around here in the seattle area but this summer was the exception. I couldn't afford a chiller, 600 buxs? 8O So I just went out and bought 2 window mounted AC units ($188 total) and I'm good to go! Almost gets too cold.

Fans are also Awesome! I have 2 in my canopyand 1 aimed directly at ballast.....

 

[danmhippo]

No, actually Len is refering to mounting fans to blow across your surface (in the sump). Blowing across the surface act as a evaporative cooler. This will pull a few degrees down for most tanks.

 

[danmhippo]

Also, fans blowing directly at the bulbs is not a good idea, especially if you have MH bulbs. Cool bulbs will cause spectrum shifts.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Danm! We miss you, hun.

 

[Fishbreath]

I use blue ice (the reusable gel in a sealed plastic container). The bigger ones cost about $2.20 each at Target. I have 5 of them for my 60 gal tank. You can put them in a zip lock plastic bag if you're worried about them leaking. That's what I do but so far I've never had one leak. Put one or two in the tank or sump at a time to lower the temperature slowly. I've found that using all five will lower the temp about 2 degrees. Then throw them back in the freezer and your can repeat in 2-3 hours.

Steve

 

[danmhippo]

Hey, SM, I missed ya folks too! I ain't got much time nowadays, but I will show up when I find breaks here and there. You folks are doing an excellent job!

(Apologize about stealing this thread a bit here........)


Someone emailed me (but I deleted the email by accident.............OOOOOOps....... :mrgreen: ) regarding to fan blowing across surface, I might just talk about it a bit in this thread, for whomever you are.........sorry about the email.......

Evaporative cooling is a very effective and yet simple way to cool off your water temp. Works much the same way as if you mist your skin, and put yourself in front of a fan. As water evaporated from your skin surface, it removes heat along with it and the temperature goes down.

One thing to becareful about is with evaporative cooling (blowing air across the sump/tank surface) you will need to replenish RO/fresh water back into the tank much more frequent. How much? Well, it depend on your ambient room humidity, your tank surface area, fan speed, and the angle the air hits the surface. But When I don't use fans, I lose about 1.5 Gallon a day for a 250G setup (includes sump), and when the fan is on, I lose about twice as much.

Also, MH bulbs are designed to burn hot. Blowing directly onto them will bring the glass temp down, and it may not burn up to the designed temperature to give off the correct spectrum. When you are to mount fan in the canopy, you should make sure the air does not blow directly onto the bulb.

 

[Reef_Monkey]

WOW! Thanks, that's a good idea. I was just putting ice cubes in the tank.
I didn't like that idea but I haven't picked up a chiller yet.

 

[kj-1]

i am just getting over an over heated tank, check my post, and if i would have re-stocked my tank like i had planned... i would have lost 300 - 400 bucks. that chiller can not only save you $$$$ in the long run but it can save the animals you are purchacing espceially that prize piece you would hate to lose. you can pick up used chiller for under $400 and the electricity you save will add up in $$$$$ over those room ACs.

think about it!

 

[cdeakle]

I have 2 ac units, only cost me $30.00 a YEAR each to operate. Each unit cost me 94.00 bucks. Think about it! lol

 

[Anonymous]

I just put a small 120vac computer fan in my sump cabinet, 55 gal with 20 sump, and that lowered the temp overall by 4 degrees, from 84 to 80

So, I am very happy with that little project

Bryan

 

[MarkO1]

I put a post up here recently about the best $42.96 I've spent and it has to do with building a temperature controlled 115v A/C fan that sits in my hood. I too experienced an air conditioner failure (of course it happened when I was away for a weekend) and came home to a tank temp of 92.5º. Ouch!, lost a nice showpiece accropora too. Someone told me to buy a chiller, but $600 for a chiller... not to mention the cost to run the chiller, and of course also the room A/C unit (now working double as a result of the hot air the chiller blows off) would easily increase my electric bill another $50/mo. No way man!!! I'm too much of a miser for that.
But since I installed the fan, my tank has not topped 84º. Not to mention I can keep the ambient room temperature much warmer than before. If I go away, I don't have to worry... even if the room temp hits the low 90's, my tank should stay below what I've forund to be a critical temperature of 90º. As I have it set up now, the fan kicks on at 82.5º and shuts of at around 81º. I think the fan uses only something like 10Watts... so it's pennies a month. You do need to replenish RO/DI water at about double the normal rate, but in my case, my source water is free.
I highly recommend anyone who's got a concern for overheating to consider doing this. It's very easy to do (if you're a successful reefer, you can handle this) and only took me about an hour to build.
_________________
Mercedes CLK AMG Black Series

 

[Anonymous]

What is the link to the post? I would like to add some control to my fan

Bryan

 

[MarkO1]

http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=35515
_________________
Mercedes 400