Chillers in Houston (1 Viewer)

[BrianPlankis]

Hey y'all,

As I continue to plan my tank I've been thinking about water temp. I know I'll have 2 MH (I think 250s) over the tank along with some kind of actinic. My tank probably will not receive any direct sun at any time of day, so that is good. I imagine with Houston weather most of the year heaters won't really be needed, but chillers?

I was wondering how many of you in Houston are using chillers on your system? If so, any good brands/models?

A related question, how cool do you keep your house? If you keep your air temp around say, 78, would your tank be a couple of degrees above that without a chiller?


B.

 

[Guest]

You may need a heater at night, depending on what you keep your AC set on.

 

[KarenHorn]

We keep our thermostat at 79 and the tank stays at 83 with the MH. Even when we tried turning the thermostat down the tanks still stayed up, so a chiller is definitely a good idea. We're planning on one for next year.

 

[Guest]

When I had metal halides, I had to have a chiller. Now I don't require one, but I still use it for peace of mind. IMO, a chiller is a very good investment in Houston for backup reasons. With our temperatures, all it takes is for your AC to break for a day or two, and you can lose your whole tank. A chiller is cheap insurance.

 

[BrianPlankis]

Hey Mikester,

What kind of chiller do you have?

B.

 

[Guest]

I have a 29 gal, with a 150 MH DE on it for 9 hours, with a 4 inch fan in my hood. We keep the AC at 80, with the fan on my tank stays 76, with fan off it is over 86.

For the bigger tank we are thinking of, looking at having a chiller.

Nathan

 

[BrianPlankis]

I've been reading up on chillers and most things I've read say they are noisy and produce a lot of heat. Given the limited space I'll have for a chiller and that it would have to be underneath my tank, seems like it would be counterproductive to have a large heat source underneath my tank.

Would it be better to just have a couple of cooling fans built into the hood that sucked the air straight up instead? I'll have about 15' to the ceiling and heat likes to rise anyway, so that should help it cool?

B.

 

[Guest]

Fans work better than you think. They are more efficent when they blow into the stand or hood and push the hot air out.

 

[Guest]

I have a Pacific Coast CL-650 1/4 HP. I picked it up a year ago as a "scratch and dent" model for $350. I never could tell where it was scratched or dented - although I've added a few of my own in the last year.

I agree with mrlimpet - fans can work wonders. They are the main reason my chiller rarely runs anymore. Only downside is that I evap 2+ gallons a day on my 75g.

 

[incysor]

I bought 3 cheap clip-on fans from target for about $5 a piece and clipped them to my sump so that they blew across the sump and then out of the back of the stand. It lowered my system (a 40gal and 55gal plumbed together on a 20gal sump) about 3degrees. From about 80 to 76-77. Since upgrading I drilled holes in the side of the stand to put large flat computer fans in if I need them. I just got tired hot much space the clip-ons took up.

 

[Guest]

I evaporate more than a gallon a day on my 29 gal.

One thing that was mentioned about chillers, is if you can pipe the exhaust out side, it is almost no heat given of then.

And when I was planning a 120 gal. I was going to have to have a chiller underneath, so we had thought of constucting a vent for the exhaust to go up behind the tank, to the top of the canopy , so that the heat would be going upward at the top of the tank and not across the back of the tank.

Nathan

 

[DRH]

I used to use a 1/4 HP chiller on my reef but those things are loud and the exhaust is hot/humid air. I also considered Mikester's concern about an extended power failure but I now have a monster generator and a window air conditioner for those times. That setup works great for the people and the creatures

I suppose If I had a way to do what ReefAlot does with his chillers, I might still be using it. But, alas, I just blow fans lengthwise across the water surface on my open top reef. That dropped that highest temp from 84ish to 80ish.

Darrell

PS. I still have a 1/4HP Aquanetics for sale and I've decided to take Best Offer on it.

 

[Guest]

What does Reefalot do with his chillers?

 

[DRH]

He has the exhaust enclosed and vented to the outside. I'd do that but there is no way I'm knocking out brick

 

[landfish]

If I remember right…

Reefalot cut a hole in his wall so that he could vent all of the hot air outside his house

 

[Cakepro]

I have a 75 gallon tank with two 250 watt MH's and two 100 watt VHO's. Kevin noticed the water felt a little too warm last week and recommended I add a fan to the hood. The cheap Wal-Mart fan I bought for less than 10 bucks has dropped the temp on my tank from about 84 degrees to 76 at night, 77 during the day when the halides are on (12 hours of halides a day). My house temp stays at 74 degrees and the relative humidity of the house stays at about 45%.

In other words, evaporative cooling through the use of an inexpensive fan has significantly reduced the temperature of my tank.

~ Sherri

 

[ShaneV]

Got a pic of the fan? Trying to envision something other than a computer fan that would fit in a canopy.

 

[Cakepro]

Haha, I failed to mention that it's ghetto-style until my husband finishes my real canopy with two Orion fans installed in it. I'm sure the Orion fans will whisk out the heat as effectively as the WM fan but I'm still going to use the fan on the sump to continue to get such great evaporative cooling.

The top of the canopy is open and the reflectors/MH lights are screwed onto a plank that is set atop the canopy. The fan is pointing down on top of the tank through the partially-open canopy top. It's rigged but for now it's effective.

 

[Trey]

Good job Sherri.

BTW, I have discovered that if you really want good evaporative cooling, you must point at least one of the fans down. I directed mine horizontal to the top of the aquarium quite high up in the hood and they don't really evaporate much water. I temporarily pointed another one down toward the surface of the water and the temperature dropped significantly and the evaporation rate almost doubled.

This can be estimated mathematically if anyone needs to see how much water loss would result in how much temperature drop.

Later,
Trey