Need my Chiller people's advice

[G Santana]

This summer has been brutal and my tank, inspite of the fact that it's in my basement in NJ has suffered more than last year.
I am looking for suggestions on your experience regarding chillers. The last time I had a chiller was over 30 years ago and really haven't any current experience.
My tank is 130 gallon when displacement is taken into account it may have 100 or so gallons. My sump is a 30 gallon with about 15/20 gallons and I'm looking to drop the temp by at least 5 to 6 degrees.

Your experienced input is greatly appreciated.

 

[blaxsun]

Are you running A/C or an air exchanger at all? I assume you're probably already running a fan for cooling?

 

[KrisReef]

Yup, Sometimes it is simpler to cool the room than to heat up the room with a chiller to cool the tank. Can you exhaust the chiller so that the hot air goes outside?

The key to chillers is that they have to drop the tank temperature below the room temperature, and the horsepower you require is based upon the volume of the tank and the difference in temperature from the room and the target water temperature.

If your basement is 85 degrees, you need to drop the tank 5-7 degrees below ambient and ~125 gallons, then I used to know how all this worked, but now

I just use other peoples pages

 

[mtraylor]

Tetco is good brand. That is what I have In closet as leftover backup from my MH days. I kept in case I have an ac issue one day and need to keep tank cool

 

[DrMMI]

I have a chiller on my 260g. Because of the 80w UV I run on my tank, the chiller is the most important piece of equipment I have to keep my tank between 78-79 degrees. I tried fans for a while, but I was evaporating so much water. The downside of the chiller is it does expel warm air back into the room. If you can somehow put it in a different room or closet or something that would be ideal. Otherwise I have mine directly next to the tank near an AC vent so the be air gets cooled as it's coming out.

 

[Chrisv.]

I think innovation re. chillers stopped sometime around when LEDs became popular. It's too bad, because there have been some substantial improvements to window ac units recently, and a chiller is basically just a window ac unit. If led prices keep going up, maybe there will be more progress in this space as people try out halides again. Still, this is a small segment of an already small market.

As everyone said, fans work to a point, but raise humidity substantially. Chillers work great, but without a system to duct the air away, they really do heat the whole room.

I have taken to cooling the room rather than the tank, because my tank is right on the edge temp wise.