Still high temps in my 14g biocube,and I give up.

[Harold Green]

You might want to take a look at rapid's fans if you have enough room for a large one or two.

 

[TheEngineer]

I'm coming into this late... what temp is the tank room and what temp is the tank? CFLs don't put off that much heat. LED's put off a fair bit of heat if you don't vent them properly.

 

[Rjramos]

Room temp is very important to bring down water temp in a cube. I know you mentioned above you don't wanna run your a/c at 70, but how about 78? That's where I put it when I leave the house. My biocube 29 still had temp issues running power compacts at this room temp of Max 78, around 83 water temp. I got 24 LED retro system from RapidLED with the storm controller and I connected an additional small fan right to the controller, blowing onto the drip plate on top of the media basket. Blowing onto this thin layer of water worked great! The tank usually runs 1 degree above room temp.

 

[Oldsalt01]

We keep the house at 78 during the day. My tank temps will go to 85 and change if the CFL's are on for more than 3-4 hours. I am definitely going to retrofit to LED's in the future, but in the meantime I hope this modification works. I'm contemplating cutting additional slots in the hood to accommodate the additional air flow, or possibly mounting another fan in the hood top, directly over the reflector, to vent out, but I want to give this simple mod a chance.

 

[TheEngineer]

78 should be fine. In this case, the hood is your enemy. It is keeping all of the heat in. Have you tried just opening or removing the feeding door?

 

[saltyphish]

After copious mathematical convolutions I can get a 12 LED setup (6 Cool White, 6 Royal Blue, solder-less LED's, with connectors, drivers, and dimmers) for $116 plus tax, from Rapid LED. Their web site even has diagrams on how to dismantle the hood electronics to replace the CFL's (the cause of my heat issue) and still keep the fans working to ensure the LED's are cooled, as well as how to build the LED board. Great site, VERY helpful on line chat with them. Yesterday I modified the back of the hood; slightly larger electrical chord hole (all praise the Dremel), PC mini fan bolted on, and am waiting for the 12V power supply to show up today. I'll know by tomorrow if the alterations worked. If they do I'll post pics.

Yes, Great customer service with them. I bought my retro kit from them and the directions were great. No guess work involved.

 

[usctrack]

I use a squirrel cage fan on my 29 with metal halides and it works great. I have it propped under the from of the hood blowing across the surface and it works great. I have it running on apex to keep temps in check.

 

[ngvu1]

If the ac is running, the room should be not very humid and the fan can do the job fine. 80 is still ok actually. I'll dig up some pic tonight.
Basically I lifted the hood up with a piece of wood and let an external fan blow from front to back if the temp goes pass 79... work very well for me. The evaporation increase for sure

 

[mcarroll]

This is not a comparison against the Rapid LED setup, as that appears to be a slick hood-converstion. This is just for perspective...lotsa folks don't know about these.

These are the first demo units I built just to test the equipment:

Sockets mounted, empty.


Bulbs mounted, off.


Blues

Whites


The standard strip configuration.

When a strip like this is suspended 12" over the water, 1 bulb (3x1w) every two inches - no spacing - with the standard 30º lenses will properly light a 12" wide tank of whatever length.

If your Biocube footpring is 12" square, then that means you need (12 / 2) - 1 = 5 bulbs.

A gu10-based fixture/rebuild would run you from $15 - $30.

That would get you five bulbs, plus sockets ($3-$6/each, total). If you need cheap, get seperate blue and white bulbs. If you spend toward the top of the range you can get custom bulbs with mixed colors - I'd get 2 white LED's and 1 blue LED in each gu10....the other way (two blue, one white) if you like more blue. Both ways looks pretty nice.

You just have to do a little bit of easy wiring, and get creative when you make the fixture itself. I've used a strip of wood, a plate of metal...others have refashioned their old hoods using them....use your imagination and recycle something cool.

People have refashioned their Biocube 29's with these, but I think they are probably too tall to fit in the 14" hood. Check that thread link though...there are a ton of example projects people have done. Just be leery of any designs putting down more light per square inch - some folks can't help following the "more is better" line, but these lights are wicked bright because of the 30º lenses. Unless you're designing for a specific situation that calls for brighter bulbs (e.g. taller mounting height), just get the 3w bulbs. Same goes for bulb quantity.

 

[Hellsinki]

When I had my BC14 set up, I had to have a fan blowing on it 24/7 and yes my house has AC. I had a Kessil 160 over it and a lexan lid that I made. I propped the lid up about 1/8" toward the direction of the fan. I was able to keep temp at 78-79 with house AC set at 79. I just used a $20 Walmart fan. I'd rather use a fan vs the energy cost of a chiller.

 

[usctrack]

Here is my current setup. I'm running metal halides on my 29g so it gets crazy hot and quickly.

I do have an apex so I have fan set to come on at 80 and off at 79. These squirrel fans put out some air. Just need to find a way to incorporate it from the back.

 

[mcarroll]

I like it where it is.

GL!

 

[Oldsalt01]

Thanks to everyone who's had input on this project. I managed to hook the PC mini fan to one of the cord outlets in back with a little creative Dremeling (see pics) and can get my temps down to 77.6 with the CFL's on for hours. NOW, I have to put a heater in to maintain a constant tank temp because the fan works too well. Obviously a controller to turn the fan on/off would be the way to go, but that's out of the question $-wise right now. It's always something!

 

[TheEngineer]

Great job! Now just keep an eye on your water level from the increased evaporation.

Is it an AC or DC fan? Looks DC from the picture, but I can't tell.

If it is DC, you can get one of these...
http://amzn.com/B00I03HHGE

 

[Oldsalt01]

Yah, my evap levels have gone appreciably higher. I have to add about a pint of RO/DI every other day or so, but it's OK for now. The fan's a DC out of an old PC power supply. Bought a 12V power supply adapter and a pin adapter from RapidLED, cut the pin connector off the plug, soldered the fan wires to the plug and insulated them with shrink tubing and Bingo, I've finally got the heat under control. I also blocked off the other cord outlet with duct tape temporarily so the heat exits the front side vents in the hood. It actually works more efficiently than I thought it would and one of these days will replace the tape with a small plexi shield.

 

[pickupman66]

Good job there wiring it up. one thing is you can get one of the adjustable power supplies that go from 3-14 volts and you can then run the fans at lower speed if they are too loud.

 

[Oldsalt01]

And where would one obtain said adjustable power supply (if my wife finds out about this, she's gonna kill me).

 

[TheEngineer]

See the link I posted....

 

[pickupman66]

Walmart... radioshack. Amazon. Etc

 

[Joel Duran]

That's what I am finding out about this wonderful hobby. I one point or another you may find yourself at the crossroads of your marriage or the hobby. Lol