Cool vibes: How do you lower the temperature in your tank?

[Stoneyed]

1/2hp chiller located outside (don't want to dump that heat load on my A/C). In Florida, so it runs ~11 months out of the year.

 

[Falc!]

RO ice cubes in sump when it really gets out of hand in summer

 

[fr3n0z]

Living a 1800mt in the alps does the job for me

 

[DanyL]

I live in a hot country, so a Chiller is pretty much the norm here for all reefs.

I have a Teco Tk2000 over my 206g system, and a 1/3HP Haliea over my 90g frag tank.

One thing most of you guys don’t realize is how jealous we are over this precious free space you all have for additional equipment and dosing containers in the cabinet, where we end up putting our big and noisy chillers at.

 

[Cheezle]

114F outside but 74F in my apartment

 

[Derrick0580]

Guess I’m lucky being in Indiana and temperatures don’t get too crazy.

 

[DeniseAndy]

I had a chiller for over 15 years doing the temp control, but it went out last fall and I decided to try a fan cooling this summer and check how it does. So far, good. Stays under 80 so far.

 

[Double monti 61]

My current temperature is 84 degrees I live in a studio apartment with only 2 windows and no a/c I leave the windows open all summer 24/7 I only use a few fans to cool the apartment and my system never has problems at 84 or 85 degrees for a few hours a day temperatures at night cool and my system cools also.

 

[DanATL]

I am maniacal about keeping heat out of the tank to begin with. LEDs and DC pumps make that much easier than it used to be.

 

[Cabinetman]

My system is about 1400 gallons. I’m on a well with basically an unlimited supply of ice cold water so I made a 4” pvc pipe about 5’ long with 200 or so feet of 1/4” ro line coiled up in it which I circulate cold water through. I have it controlled by my apex using one of the solenoid valves. . The 4” pipe is on one of my drain lines. Really doesn’t use a whole lot of water but works remarkably well to keep my set up under 79

 

[Roatan Reef]

Fans get it done for me (not so much back in the metal halide days). Evaporation can dissipate a lot of heat, if I leave my fans on full time they can pull out more heat than my main heater can provide and the tank could over cool, I control them with my APEX (and have a secondary heater). The included graph shows a couple of recent days where the tank needed heat at night and fans during the day.

As stated by others, you do need an ATO system that can keep up with the evap.

Yea, here in sunny So Florida it's getting wicked hot....I have a 40B with a glass lid, and never really had too much of an evaporation issue, until recently.

I can see the water lines in my tank now and am losing water to evaporation more than I ever have. Thinking about getting an ATO, at the moment I am just manually topping off with RODI.

 

[1112-425XL]

Funny you should ask. I have central air. I had my A/C unit replaced Sunday. It has been a nightmare since. The new unit isn't cooling properly. Troubleshooting has been going on for almost 4 days now. Fortunately with ceiling fans and the A/C doing a little cooling when the sun goes down I've been able to keep the tanks near 79°.
The first day when they were replacing the unit I put bottles of ice in the sump. They melted fast but kept the temp down.

 

[Ef4life]

I was surprised how little ice in a bag did for me, it took about 10 minutes for a gallon of ice in ziplocks to melt and no change, maybe a bottle would be better?

Blocks of ice last a long longer so the bigger the bottle the longer its will cool

 

[Sump Crab]

My current temperature is 84 degrees I live in a studio apartment with only 2 windows and no a/c I leave the windows open all summer 24/7 I only use a few fans to cool the apartment and my system never has problems at 84 or 85 degrees for a few hours a day temperatures at night cool and my system cools also.

I would buy a window unit if I were you lol! I would hate to not have AC!

 

[Clownreef]

Chiller! Love it.

 

[Raptor72]

I keep 2 frozen 2 liter soda bottles filled with water in the ice box and swap them out. This is enough for my Red Sea 750 along with AC and sump fans.

 

[00W]

I float bags of ice in my sump.
If it gets really bad I'll make bags of block ice that fit in the front compartment.
I have a 1000lb machine at the restaurant so I'm lucky in this respect.

 

[davidcalgary29]

1. Make the kids stand over the tank and fan it with hand fans. It counts as exercise and it keeps their hands away from handheld devices!

2. Show the spouse the latest bill from the latest chiller "upgrade", position them near the tank, and let the yelling induce evaporative cooling!

3. Left that 24 pack in the freezer too long in preparation for that big deck party? Avoid disaster by thawing it in the sump! Pro tip: tell your guests that the fish slime is an artisanal salt rime.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I have a high speed 16" fan that blasts the frag tanks. I do have an 800 gallon system so.... like most things I do, not applicable to most.

 

[FishTruck]

I have a big system. Fan blows across 12 feet of display tank, this air is collected and vented outside to get rid of the considerable humidity. I also run a window unit in my fish room to help with heat and humidity there. Fresh air comes into the fish room to replace what is lost. I am in the Midwest so sometimes this outside air is helpful, sometimes detrimental. The system works best in the winter.