New 200 gallon in-wall setup (was: cracked center brace)
- Thread starter preston_brown
- Start date
I'll put some siphon-break holes in the tube, that should work and I should have thought of that.
Yes, that's all 150 pounds of rock. 200 gallon tanks are big...more rock will come in time, but I do like to have open areas. I'll build two reef structures, one on the left, one on the right, with a large swimming area in the middle.
Yes, that's all 150 pounds of rock. 200 gallon tanks are big...more rock will come in time, but I do like to have open areas. I'll build two reef structures, one on the left, one on the right, with a large swimming area in the middle.
Well, I did some arranging of the rock tonight because I have a bunch of critters arriving in the morning (snails and sandbed dwellers). When piled up in two lumps, the rock does appear to take up more volume, but I'll definitely need more. Probably at least 50 lbs more. I'd take a picture but right now it is very cloudy and there isn't much to see. Tomorrow.
I did run into my first serious issue with the new tank room today. HEAT. As I said, I have a thermostat/humidistat on the wall that kicks on an exhaust fan when temperature or humidity passes certain thresholds. I also have a movable damper on the incoming transfer duct that allows me to pick between "outside" and "house" air. The thought being, run outside air in the colder months, and then only use air-conditioned house-air in the summer when the outside air temp exceeds the inside air temp.
Well, we got our first taste of Spring in North Carolina this week. 80 degrees and sunny. And, I installed the lights and I've been running them 8-10 hours a day for the last two days. The room got quite hot, despite the exhaust fan. Like, 86 degrees hot.
Crud. Well, out I go into the garage to dust off my 1/3HP chiller that I hoped I wouldn't need. It is an older Red Sea Fish Pharm model that I got for a steal on eBay a few years back, but it works great. I don't think Red Sea even makes chillers anymore...
Anyway, I clean it up, because it was dusty and filthy. I flushed the heat exchanger for like an hour because there was a bunch of algae slime buildup in there from when I last shut it down...4 years ago. Thank God for titanium, no corrosion. Just crud.
I fire it up and it immediately trips my GFCI breaker. CRAP, I think, it shorted somehow while sitting. Tried about 3-4 more times, same result. It powered up, but when it would go to kick in the compressor, off went the breaker.
Well, I did[ spray it (kinda) with a hose. I opened it up, and there were a few very slightly damp spots. I dried all the places where I assumed there could be stray current going to ground, and tried again. Bingo. works fine.
But, as the chiller did its work dropping the temp in the tank, the fish room started to get even hotter. Like 89 degrees hot. And a chiller only has 10-15 degrees "headroom" to drop temperatures. So, I can forsee a future problem. In the meantime, I turned off 2 out of 3 metal halides and the temperature started dropping fast.
Conclusion: I need to export more of the heat in the room right out the vent. Three thoughts come to mind immediately:
1. Bigger exhaust fan to move more air.
2. Duct the metal halides to the exhaust vent and put a fan on them, like in a greenouse. Will have to purchase or fabricate different bulb fixtures, but I think they can be had for about $150 each.
3. Duct the chiller "fan side" to the same place. Could be harder.
Anyone else wrestled with a similar "small space" heat issue? I'm sure someone has.
Last, I'm really surprised, but my skimmer has been running 48 hrs and it still isn't pulling anything out of the water. Not foaming at all. I gave it a good hot water cleaning (no soap) about a month ago after sitting for so long, but it was, trust me, good and broken in when I put it away. I figured with all this rock that is barely cured, it was sure to go nuts...
-- Preston
I did run into my first serious issue with the new tank room today. HEAT. As I said, I have a thermostat/humidistat on the wall that kicks on an exhaust fan when temperature or humidity passes certain thresholds. I also have a movable damper on the incoming transfer duct that allows me to pick between "outside" and "house" air. The thought being, run outside air in the colder months, and then only use air-conditioned house-air in the summer when the outside air temp exceeds the inside air temp.
Well, we got our first taste of Spring in North Carolina this week. 80 degrees and sunny. And, I installed the lights and I've been running them 8-10 hours a day for the last two days. The room got quite hot, despite the exhaust fan. Like, 86 degrees hot.
Crud. Well, out I go into the garage to dust off my 1/3HP chiller that I hoped I wouldn't need. It is an older Red Sea Fish Pharm model that I got for a steal on eBay a few years back, but it works great. I don't think Red Sea even makes chillers anymore...
Anyway, I clean it up, because it was dusty and filthy. I flushed the heat exchanger for like an hour because there was a bunch of algae slime buildup in there from when I last shut it down...4 years ago. Thank God for titanium, no corrosion. Just crud.
I fire it up and it immediately trips my GFCI breaker. CRAP, I think, it shorted somehow while sitting. Tried about 3-4 more times, same result. It powered up, but when it would go to kick in the compressor, off went the breaker.
Well, I did[ spray it (kinda) with a hose. I opened it up, and there were a few very slightly damp spots. I dried all the places where I assumed there could be stray current going to ground, and tried again. Bingo. works fine.
But, as the chiller did its work dropping the temp in the tank, the fish room started to get even hotter. Like 89 degrees hot. And a chiller only has 10-15 degrees "headroom" to drop temperatures. So, I can forsee a future problem. In the meantime, I turned off 2 out of 3 metal halides and the temperature started dropping fast.
Conclusion: I need to export more of the heat in the room right out the vent. Three thoughts come to mind immediately:
1. Bigger exhaust fan to move more air.
2. Duct the metal halides to the exhaust vent and put a fan on them, like in a greenouse. Will have to purchase or fabricate different bulb fixtures, but I think they can be had for about $150 each.
3. Duct the chiller "fan side" to the same place. Could be harder.
Anyone else wrestled with a similar "small space" heat issue? I'm sure someone has.
Last, I'm really surprised, but my skimmer has been running 48 hrs and it still isn't pulling anything out of the water. Not foaming at all. I gave it a good hot water cleaning (no soap) about a month ago after sitting for so long, but it was, trust me, good and broken in when I put it away. I figured with all this rock that is barely cured, it was sure to go nuts...
-- Preston
How many CFMs does your fan pull. I have 500w of MH and must admit some of those summer weekends when the wife is catching up on laundry the tank/laundry room gets a little steamy. I have a 120CFM nutone and it keeps up pretty well. How large is your fresh air intake from the house/outside.
MY tank room holds about 80F at all times even when the lights are out. Alot of reefers will tell you that the biggest factor in cooling the tank is removing humidity from the immediate area. Things may not be as bad as you think right now.
MY tank room holds about 80F at all times even when the lights are out. Alot of reefers will tell you that the biggest factor in cooling the tank is removing humidity from the immediate area. Things may not be as bad as you think right now.
The problem is, I'm not sure how many CFM the exhaust fan is moving, and I'm not sure what got installed. But it isn't very much.
Humidity is not a problem, the exhaust fan is taking care of that.
The fresh air intake I would have to go measure. The transfer duct is a standard flexible HVAC pipe feeding what looks like a 15"x15" intake duct. Exhaust looks similar. Pics attached.
Humidity is not a problem, the exhaust fan is taking care of that.
The fresh air intake I would have to go measure. The transfer duct is a standard flexible HVAC pipe feeding what looks like a 15"x15" intake duct. Exhaust looks similar. Pics attached.
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Well, my Critters arrived this morning from Bob Sullivan. Very helpful guy who sent me a lot of interesting stuff. I got a couple of very nice coraline algae live rocks, about 5-6 inches round. Another live rock w/a bunch of Caulerpo Prolifera -- really meant for a sump or refugium but that isn't available right now, so I put this and a bunch of reef rubble he supplied in a lower-flow back corner of the tank. A whole variety of snails, copepods, limpets, mini-stars, etc. also arrived with some chaeto, which I also put in this low-flow "lagoon" spot. Very cool also was some macro algaes I've never seen before that are rooted -- a bottlebrush, I believe, and two others that are more fan-shaped. I put them on the opposite side of the tank in some deep sand. Also a codium plant, which looks like a tree kind of. Neat. Last, a whole bunch of live sand to re-seed the sandbed after the glass-break disaster (bed was seeded already at that point, but I don't think the variety in it before was nearly as great as it will be now). Lots of cool little worms and mini stars, this should kick things into higher gear in a few weeks.
Pictures after the tank settles out...
Pictures after the tank settles out...
I opened up my exhaust fan port to take a look at what I have. It's a 1.5 Sone, 150 CFM version from Braun. Clearly with all the intake ducting it is not going to be sufficient on hot summer days. It is working fine today, but it is only 50 degrees outside...
I ordered this Panasonic to replace it. It is 440 CFM and only 2.1 Sone. My pumps are way louder than this. Should be a great replacement.
http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-FV40NLF ... 345&sr=8-1
I ordered this Panasonic to replace it. It is 440 CFM and only 2.1 Sone. My pumps are way louder than this. Should be a great replacement.
http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-FV40NLF ... 345&sr=8-1
Are both of your ducting covers on the ceiling by chance? If so, IMO this is your problem. You would only be pulling air across the ceiling whereas if you have the exhaust vent on the ceiling and the air intake near the floor you then get adequate air movement to pull the heat to the ceiling and out of the room.
Yes, both intake and exhaust are on the ceiling, but at opposite sides of the room. Might be the issue, but hot air should be rising and accumulating at the top, right?
Tank is looking much nicer this morning now that things have settled out. And, no hot weather expected for at least a week, so I have time to figure out the exhaust issue.
-- Preston
Tank is looking much nicer this morning now that things have settled out. And, no hot weather expected for at least a week, so I have time to figure out the exhaust issue.
-- Preston
Yes, heat does rise but it will also sit somewhat stagnant at mid room if you dont help the cool exterior air down to your level. Before taking any drastic measures I would try to use a small 7" fan, on low, in the corner near your air intake just to stir the air around a little bit and see if that does the trick. I just finished a sealed mechanical room for some peoples furnace in the middle of the basement. I had to bring in two passive ducts totaling 160 cu. in. of air. Code requires one low and one high, a foot from the floor and a foot from the ceiling. You would be amazed at the draft a passive system can make with a little heat from the furnace. I was.
Tank is settled out but I definitely have some aquascaping to do -- right now I have that "pile of rocks" look. Last time I had the tank set up I had larger pieces of live rock. I put the largest ones on the bottom this time to form a wide base, plus the largest pieces were the least "good" looking, so that worked out. Anybody have any ideas on how to achieve a natural look?
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It was my birthday today, so my wife sent me to the fish store with my oldest daughter. Got some hardy fish just to give some movement to the tank, and I'm in no way opposed to a bunch of cheap fish that form a nice school. I got 10 green chromis and a yellow-tail blue damsel...for sentimental reasons, as that hardy fish was one of the first saltwater fish I ever had back in the mid 90s. Also 15 astrea and 15 more margarite/margarita snails for the algae growth that is sure to come. Tank is looking fairly happy tonight, even as diatoms started to break out somewhat. Probably from the rock, as I am employing a very nice new RO-DI unit for the water.
-- Preston
-- Preston
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