Keeping your tank cool in the summer (post 8)

[Zack]

So yesterday I moved my tank to it's new home for the summer and already the water is a tad bit warmer than I'd like it to be. So I was just curious if any of you guys had any low tech ways (other than a chiller) to keep your tank a couple degrees cooler during the summer.

[FireWater]

When I had my Finnex set up at work I had some problems with it staying cool in the summer due to programmable thermostats I had no control over. What I did was shorten my light cycle a little bit and put a small fan aimed at the water surface.

[rrasco]

The best thing you can do is keep air moving over the top of the water. It will evaporate and need to be topped off, but that is good, water cools through evaporation. Also, keeping the ambient temperature of the room down helps stabilize things.

[cowboy572]

Also I have heard of taking small containers with lids and filling them with ro/di water and then freeze them. Then when your water gets to warm, just pop a few of them in there to bring the temperature down.

[koa25]

Also I have heard of taking small containers with lids and filling them with ro/di water and then freeze them. Then when your water gets to warm, just pop a few of them in there to bring the temperature down.
Thats ingenious. Simple yet smart. I've always done ice in bags. Never thought of freezing the actual RODI water and ploping the whole cube in there like an ice cube top off... I am enlightened.

[avilamillar]

I tried Pykrete in bottles or bags a few years ago. Pykrete is a mix of saw dust and ice, here's what wikipedia says:

Pykrete is a composite material (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_material) made of approximately 14 percent sawdust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawdust) or some other form of wood pulp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_pulp) (such as paper) and 86 percent ice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice) by weight. Its use was proposed during World War II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II) by Geoffrey Pyke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Pyke) to the British Royal Navy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy) as a candidate material for making a huge, unsinkable aircraft carrier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk). Pykrete has some interesting properties, notably its relatively slow melting rate (because of low thermal conductivity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_conductivity)), and its vastly improved strength (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_of_materials) andtoughness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toughness) over unmodified (crystalline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystalline)) ice; it is closer in form to concrete (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete).

[Zack]

Thanks guys! I think my first issue was during the move I moved the fan from my k2 viper and it was pointing upwards. I corrected it and now it is cooling the tank down. The container of RO water is genius and I'll definitely have to give that a go tomorrow!

[Zack]

Just curious, how high is too high for our reef tanks? I read an article that said most of the worlds reefs are in water ranging from 82 to 89 degrees and currently my tank is at 81 degrees and holding. The corals all look good and are open and my anemone is also open and still has good color in it.

[Zack]

I tried Pykrete in bottles or bags a few years ago. Pykrete is a mix of saw dust and ice, here's what wikipedia says:

Pykrete is a composite material (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_material) made of approximately 14 percent sawdust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawdust) or some other form of wood pulp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_pulp) (such as paper) and 86 percent ice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice) by weight. Its use was proposed during World War II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II) by Geoffrey Pyke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Pyke) to the British Royal Navy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy) as a candidate material for making a huge, unsinkable aircraft carrier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk). Pykrete has some interesting properties, notably its relatively slow melting rate (because of low thermal conductivity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_conductivity)), and its vastly improved strength (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_of_materials) andtoughness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toughness) over unmodified (crystalline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystalline)) ice; it is closer in form to concrete (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete).

How did the pykrete work out for you?

[LuckySingh]

i run about 1100wtts for about 8hrs on my 6ft long tank with the canopy....so far A/C at 73 degrees been doing the job with couple 4"computer fans installed in on the canopy....tank hvent gone over 79 ever yet...but i know maybe during actual summer i might need chiller....

[rrasco]

My 29 bounces around from 78-82. I'm hoping the 105 stays more stable than that, but I actually prefer a little temp variation, it's more natural that way; so long as it's not too big of a swing.

[Zack]

In my apartment I kept the AC at 70 always, here at home it's around 76 so that's a factor in itself. I went out and got a fan and it's been bringing the temp down quite a bit. I also got a digital thermometer for the time being until my controller comes in. Right now temp is at 78.6 which is not too bad. I think the reason why my reading was so high was because that was taken from 3'' into the water. I'll look into computer fans as a more compact way of keeping the temp down.

[bfoleyiii]

My understanding with people that use an turf scrubber is that they can get a rather dramatic decrease in temps by pointing a fan at the waterfall so that could be an option.