metal halides and heat

[zheka757]

I doubt that you can, but you can turn the tank temp down to 73 or 74 with the heaters.

trying to figure out what you mean here!?

 

[zheka757]

by the way here is my update on house A/C, inside the air handler when you open it up, there is a way to change speed for the blower motor, I changed it to highest speed, so now the air blows harder through the vents, in results keeping my temperature at 76F now. but still cants reach my desired temp of 74.

 

[R-balljunkie]

1) get a mini split. 1T option....can diy the installation, 650 bux.

 

[R-balljunkie]

2) pull a page from the pot growers....air cool your lights. bang them all together and put a 6" axial fan, attic mounted to pull the heat out. will need new reflectors, fan.

 

[zheka757]

2) pull a page from the pot growers....air cool your lights. bang them all together and put a 6" axial fan, attic mounted to pull the heat out. will need new reflectors, fan.

thank you for reply! but based on my setup, this is not something i can do,

 

[Smite]

I'm assuming your nightly 80F is with no heaters at all, just due to ambient room temp? I believe jda's statement was getting your low temps as low as possible will give you more of a buffer for raising temps throughout the day. If you're starting at 80 now and hitting 83ish then you'd be much safer if you can drop to mid 70s at night, potentially only hitting low 80s that way.

That's good you hit 76F. Even when I ran LED my tank would be a few degrees above ambient naturally, so getting that down is huge. I'm assuming your ATO reservoir is in the same room, or a room that's cooled as well? If accessible I wonder if you could add a second AC return vent to that room?

I see the fans above look to be blowing the correct way, do you have good air circulation in the sump area too?

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

So this room is small 5x10' I measured metal helides have being off for 3 hours already. And when I measured room temp, it's at 82* ceiling at 85. During peak hours of MH, room temp can go as high as 90's
Here is picture of whole room, in a ceiling I got exhaust fan on 24/7. And on a side of the tank I got fan basically also 24/7 on

I would put a mini split ac in that room and double down on fans before I use a chiller, less maintenance and can cool the water and the room for a little cheaper.

 

[TaylorPilot]

The ultimate fix (I am only sort of joking) is...

https://mrcool.com/diy-4th-generation/
It is expensive, but it will fix all your problems. It sounds like yoru AC isn't properly sized for the heat load of the home. A variable speed split unit in that part of your home might fix everything.

 

[jda]

i do have selectable ballast. and this is not hurting bulbs/ballast by having 400w bulb in it and turning it down to 250w?

You can just lower the wattage, but getting 250w bulbs for the summer months would be better. At 3-4 months a year, you can use them for probably 8 years in just the summer. You might just find that 250w is all that you need anyway.

As for temp, once you figure out how to cool the room, let your tank temp drop too. I started running my tanks at 73-74 and nothing seems to notice, but I am saving 60 bucks on my electric bill. :)

If you get one of those window-exit AC units that has a condenser drains, the fans will cool your tank better too. You might need a 5 gallon bucket on the drain, though.

 

[djf91]

I run 4x400 watt metal halide. This is what I have mounted in my fish room. The two hoses exhaust humidity/air out a window. Do you have a window in the room? As mentioned earlier, your home AC may be undersized for your home.

Amazon product ASIN B0028AYQDC

 

[RedoubtReef]

by the way here is my update on house A/C, inside the air handler when you open it up, there is a way to change speed for the blower motor, I changed it to highest speed, so now the air blows harder through the vents, in results keeping my temperature at 76F now. but still cants reach my desired temp of 74.

I'd say you're good. Nothing wrong with 76 degrees.

 

[djf91]

I'd say you're good. Nothing wrong with 76 degrees.

Pretty sure he’s talking about his house temp, not tank temp.

 

[zheka757]

You can just lower the wattage, but getting 250w bulbs for the summer months would be better. At 3-4 months a year, you can use them for probably 8 years in just the summer. You might just find that 250w is all that you need anyway.

I was following some of your post about par readings.....
what do you think of this move;
i currently have 4 400w radium's over my tank, I use icecap selectable ballast to run those bulbs.
Im aware that higher kelvin bulb lose intensity when measuring with par meter.
So here is my question, will there be much differents in par between my current 400w 20k radium and 250w 14k bulb?
im thinking to lower heat and at same time not lose much par over the tank.

 

[jda]

There is no way to know for sure without a par meter, but it is a good thing to try.

 

[Snoopdog]

The last few years have been bad, but late June and early July are showing what 2024 is going to be like. Lots of us here in the south are talking about how our AC units just cannot keep up. An ac unit can cool what 20-25 degrees below ambient? There is a point to where the house is just not going to stay cool, halides on top of it is going to be bad. My house yesterday never got below 77 with the AC cranking the entire day, today is a bit better because the outside temp is a few degrees cooler.

20 years ago when I had halides I cooled the tank with fans for quite a while, but when the AC unit could not keep up with the southern heat I finally bought a 1/5hp chiller. I am going to cry when I get the next power bill.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I would add A mini-split and be done with it. Anything else is a band-aid. I would also consider adding a chiller for emergency use.

You can DIY a minisplit with precharged hoses or pay a local contractor. I put one in my shed (my gym) for $500

 

[cilyjr]

house A/C cant keep up from heat coming from the tank/lights.

Did I miss something?
The room already is connected to your central ac and the MH are making it so the entire house is too hot?

Is your central air conditioning system very old? You should be getting a roughly 20° split between return and supply. Meaning the air being sucked into the system should be all about 20° warmer than the air being pushed out.

Is your HVAC system return in the room with your tank?

My guess would be you have an old r22 system with a coil that is so clogged air is not properly flowing through. if I tested I would assume you had pretty high static pressure before the coil.

You can DIY a minisplit with precharged hoses or pay a local contractor. I put one in my shed (my gym) for $500

$500... Wow... a 6K Mitsubishi system is going to cost right around $1200 to $1800 just for the equipment.

Side note, if the OP is not much of a DIY guy then don't install a mini split by your self. Find someone to help.
Most licensed contractors won't touch these as we would have too many warranty issues. Your best bet would be to find an install crew that does side work.

 

[BeanAnimal]

$500... Wow... a 6K Mitsubishi system is going to cost right around $1200 to $1800 just for the equipment.

Side note, if the OP is not much of a DIY guy then don't install a mini split by your self. Find someone to help.
Most licensed contractors won't touch these as we would have too many warranty issues. Your best bet would be to find an install crew that does side work.

12K BTU ductless with Mitsubishi compressors can be had all day, every day and come loaded with enough charge for the line set and sealed lines. $600 or less delivered.

DIY? Sure. Hook up line set, leaving one side open. Crack open valve and purge and hook up. We can argue all day about not pumping it down, but I know of numerous units (first hand) that have been running fine for years.

As for myself, I opted to hook up the line set down and pump it down ( with a micron gauge) simply because I already had the tools.

As for the quality of the $500 units - they are pretty much exactly the same as the end-to-end branded units. My only gripe is in heat pump mode my de-icing cycles can't be adjusted and are not sufficient sometimes. That said, a friend has an expensive LG that has a crap de-icing cycle too..


As for the OPs central HVAC - I would agree 100A% , but the minisplit sounds far cheaper than getting AC work done in July in Florida... A can of coil cleaner couldn't hurt though.

And - no, if I owned an HVAC business I would not be installing $600 minis... I would be installing branded units with warranty and support ;)

 

[zheka757]

Did I miss something?
The room already is connected to your central ac and the MH are making it so the entire house is too hot?

yes its central unit, its about 6 years old. my house is 2000sf under air. a/c unit i got is 4ton unit. its consider oversize for my house.
any other time other june july august, my a/c is doing fine, because in Florida summer is 90-95F outside. with MH i can cook my tank if a/c is not at or below 75F'
last couple weeks i was somewhat managing water temp of tank by reducing hours of lights per day. but im not satisficed with this route. i would prefer another way. like mentioned in my last post here

 

[BeanAnimal]

Without doing a load calc or knowing much about your home - I would not call 4 Tons oversized for 2K feet in FLA.