400g system from scratch pictorial

[frankiej]

Lol, if .75 amp is alot, thats what mine says its max draw is, and id imagine thats right when you flick the switch on, and once running is probably actually less, our whole setup with the 3x250 watt 220v icecaps,1-660 with 330watts of vho, return pump, 6 powerheads and the fan only costs about 15-20 a month extra, oh and the heater to plus lights over the sump, so not to bad id say.

Thanks and good luck with your reefs,

Frank.

 

[Carl_in_Florida]

Re: Evaporative cooling

Re: Evaporative cooling

Assuming I can deal with the evaporation and additional humidity, this approach will cost a lot less, both in up front cost and ongoing energy consumption.

that is the only drawback. I look forward to see what your evap rates are.

Carl

 

[pclausen]

that is the only drawback. I look forward to see what your evap rates are.

Carl

When I left the house this morning, my evap rate was 2 drops per second coming from my float valve. I have no idea what that translates to as far as gpd (it would depend on the size of the droplets I suppose). That of course is with no fans running. I'll hang a small measuring cup under the valve when I get home to get a more precise "before" measurement.

 

[frankiej]

More fyi just in case, I have an open top on a 6 foot 125 which is 18 inches wide, it loses about 4 gallons a day through this method, and with fan off in the winter months because the basement temp is cooler then, will be about 1.5 gallons a day or so, these are just guestimates based on that I top off by hand still with that tank and it with fan uses between 12-16 32 ounce containers of water for topoff, which translates into 3-4 gallons.

Anyhow just thought it may help you decide what to do, I will find out what I am to do when I get the 480 setup, as it does have nice full covers for the openings on top and one hinged for feeding through a smaller opening, so the fan will basically just push the heat above the tank away, and may not help to keep the temp at acceptable levels, in which case I have an idea with which to use an old refrigerator with a large coil of some type which it would be safe to pump water through and make a home made chiller, and still be able to keep the beer cold in there to lol.

Anyhow if anyone has done anything like this please pm me the info so I can see how you did it, I only want to try cause a darn chiller for the big tank would be outrageously priced, and I would likely have to steal one to get it, j/k, but sure couldnt afford a new one I am sure, and so am left with only this option till the funds become available somehow to do the chiller route...Oh and we already have a second fridge in the basement near the tank which I use to keep drinks cold anyhow and it works great, oldie but a goodie.

Thanks and good luck with your reefs,

Frank.

 

[pclausen]

I picked up the fan that Frank recommended at Wal-Mart and promptly rigged it to blow across the fuge at high speed.

These were the parameters before starting the fan:

Living room temp 77 degrees
Fishroom temp 74.3 degrees
Fishroom relative humidity 55%
Water temp 83.8 degrees

Now that the fan has run for 30 minutes, these are the stats:

Living room temp 77 degrees
Fishroom temp 75.8 degrees
Fishroom relative humidity 85%
Water temp 83.3 degrees

So it seems to be working well, pulling down the water temp 1 degree per hour, but the fishroom is like a sauna now, so this isn't really going to work long term.

I'm going to start up the house A/C @ 70, raise the MH lights, and pull off the canopy. I'll also leave the fishroom door open and run the box fan in the doorway. I'm going to see if I can get the temp down to my target of 78 degrees this way. Looks like a chiller might unfortunately be in my future after all...

 

[aiber]

Buy a Chiller...You have invested so much....What's an extra GRAND??

Albert

 

[frankiej]

Lol, sorry to hear that and not lol about that, but about the cost of a chiller, how much would one cost to cool our new setup which will be upwards of 700 gallons total capacity? I hope to god my fridge idea has a plausable chance at working lol, or I am guessing the chiller required for us will be in the 2 grand or better nieghborhood.

Ah well, time will tell, and good luck with your reefs "cooling" projects.....8^)

Frank

 

[scotty1234]

I just turn up the ac and the tanks usually stay about 6 degrees warmer than the house. I've got fans blowing across the tanks with halides as well and they seem to do well. Is that fan you got loud?

 

[frankiej]

No not at all considering the amount of air it pushes, its just like a blower for your heating and ac only like a mini one, and it works great without to much noise at all, in fact I can hear my cpu fan over the stanley blower fan lol.

Good luck with your reefs,

Frank.

 

[Kent E]

I'm sorry if this is ignorant but its just some ideas:
Could you stagger your lights? use shorter lighting duration in warmer months? stagger skimmer with lights? How about a combo of everything including the fan? Fewer halides on a rail?

You got this far, you'll beat the heat.

 

[pclausen]

Ok, with everything running (skimmer, CL pump, return pump, 750w worth of MH) my water temp is now down to 79.0 degrees. The A/C has the living room cooled down to 71 degrees.

With the fan blowing over the fuge, and the box fan in the door blowing in, the fishroom is back to 55% relative humidity and the temp in there is a comfortable 74 degrees.

I have not yet explored running a fan across the tank itself. I'm sure that would drop the temp quite a bit more. Not only from the evaporative cooling, but also by removing the heat from the lights themselves. I don't really want any fans near the display, but it's a good temporary solution should the need arise.

Long term, I think I start looking for a used Aqua Logic Cyclone 1/3 hp drop-in without a controller since I have the ACII.

I went ahead and calibrated my pH probe and also got my ORP probe going. pH is reading 8.14 and ORP is 179. The MI rock is about to be loaded onto a Continental flight and will hopefully be ready for me to pick up in the morning.

Also got my 1" PVC "curing rack" made and dropped in the tank. I have no idea about the size of the rocks, so I'm sure I'll be redoing the rack before it's all over, but nothing is glued, so that will be pretty easy.

The last thing I'll do tonight will be to set the canopy back on the tank and lower the lights a little and see what that does to the water temp overnight.

 

[WILDTHING]

Anyhow if anyone has done anything like this please pm me the info so I can see how you did it, I only want to try cause a darn chiller for the big tank would be outrageously priced, and I would likely have to steal one to get it, j/k, but sure couldn't afford a new one I am sure, and so am left with only this option till the funds become available somehow to do the chiller route...Oh and we already have a second fridge in the basement near the tank which I use to keep drinks cold anyhow and it works great, oldie but a goodie.

Thanks and good luck with your reefs,

Frank.

Frankie, I've seen this done by other people, check out the DIY forum, I'm sure you'll find some good info there. I've also seen people coil and bury the hose underground to help with cooling.

pclausen, consider running your sump light after the tank is off for the night, this will help not only with heat issues but also to keep your ph stable. There are some super silent computer fans I've heard people use to cool their lights above the tank. I run 2 straight across my lights/water and my tank (120g with 55 fuge and 425 w of halide) has not gotten above 82 even with some of the hot days that we had recently. You would probably need more than 2 and would have to do a bit of research on best placement in you hood but I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the difference they make.

I'm wondering why your target temp is so low? Dr Ron suggests 82ish as normal and Randy in the Chemistry forum suggests something around 80. You've obviously done a lot of research so just wondering.

colleen
BTW, your tank is going to be killer!!:eek1:

 

[pclausen]

Thanks Colleen. I see that you're located close to me, so you'll have to come check it out once I get a little further along. I might hit you up for a cup of sand to seed my sand bed when the time comes if that's ok.

Great idea on staggering the tank and sump lights. That is actually my plan.

I got up and checked the temp at 1:30 am (couldn't sleep for some reason lol) and despite lowering the lights and putting the canopy back on, the temp was reading 77.7, which is when the heaters kick on. So I went ahead and shut down the fan blowing across the fuge and went back to bed (left the MH lights above the tank on).

Just got up and checked my log, and the tank maintained 77.8 all night long and that is also the current temp, lights, skimmer and all running. Seems like the key is to just leave the house A/C on and keep it set in the low 70's.

You know, as far as picking my target temp, back when I originally started my research into this, I was going to go with TBS' "The Package" and they recommended keeping the water temp in the range of 70-78, saying that 75 was ideal. Their website states they got those recommendations from Reefkeeping Magazine's Water Parameters article. So that was when I picked 78.

I just looked up that article, and I see that they have since revised the range to 76-83 degrees! Maybe TBS should update their site to reflect this! I also just looked up the ideal temp according to Robert Fenner (in The Conscientious Marine Aquarist) and he recommends 72-80. Finally, I checked Eric Borneman's Aquarium Corals, and sure enough, he mentions that recent trends favor maintaining temps in the range of 80-84 degrees.

I think I'm going to up my target temp to at least 80 and perhaps even 82. Looks like I don't need to be looking for a chiller after all. I'm thinking of keeping the fan for the fuge as a precaution and just leave it on the low setting and have the ACII turn it on if/when the temp gets to 82.3 degrees.

Time to call the airport and check on my rock!

 

[scotty1234]

You had me wondering about that when I first read that post. My tanks will go up to 82-83 in the summer without problems. You should be fine. Looks like your tank is going to stay about 8 degrees warmer than your house with the ac on. One thing you might want to look into is one of the digital ac controls for your house if you don't already have one. This way you get very precise with the temp in the house.

 

[aiber]

You had me wondering about that when I first read that post. My tanks will go up to 82-83 in the summer without problems. You should be fine. Looks like your tank is going to stay about 8 degrees warmer than your house with the ac on. One thing you might want to look into is one of the digital ac controls for your house if you don't already have one. This way you get very precise with the temp in the house.

scotty1234, specifically, how do I do that?

 

[WILDTHING]

Thanks Colleen. I see that you're located close to me, so you'll have to come check it out once I get a little further along. I might hit you up for a cup of sand to seed my sand bed when the time comes if that's ok.

Sure! Though it's not as alive as I had hoped, it has some life in it to get you started. I don't know if you have heard about the "sandtrade" but basically a bunch of RC people sent in a cup or 2 of sand from their fuge and Jamesurq put it all in a tub with new southdown and let it cook for a couple of months. Then he returns their cup or 2 after its seeded. He is now selling the leftovers. He said that it has snail eggs, worms, pods etc. Here is the second part of the thread (it got split after about 80 pages) PM him for details

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=569119&perpage=25&pagenumber=2


Can't wait to see pics of the new rock

colleen

 

[pclausen]

Scotty, I do have a digital ac control (you can see it in a couple of tank pics mounted on the wall to the right of the tank.) I know this is not really a good spot now that the tank is next to it, but it seems to work ok.

As it turns out, my skimmer wasn't running all night. I narrowed it down to a problem w/my ACII controller. I'm running most things in manual mode at the moment, and when the controller sends all the X10 updates every 5 minutes, it is shutting down the X10 address that controls the skimmer. It does so despite that address being manually forced to be on. It is even showing a capital 'M' on the LCD display of the controller after the update, so the ACII does know to leave it on, yet tells the X10 interface to shut it off. It just started doing this last night. Strange. I guess my unit has gone bad so I'm sending Neptune an email to see about getting a replacement. I just unplugged my X10 interface from the outlet for now so that the skimmer stays running. Now will be the real test to see what my temp will be at. I'm leaving the house ac set at 70 and everything else as before.

No word on the rock yet, but I hope it will be on a flight due to land around 10 this morning.

 

[pclausen]

Colleen, thanks for the heads up on the sandtrade deal. Sounds like just the thing I'm looking for!

 

[scotty1234]

Aiber,
Not sure what you were asking, but if you're asking how to wire one up, I have no idea as mine came with the house. Turn your house ac on to about 70 during the day, leave it for about 24 hours that way and see what your tank runs at then. I have always done things this way and it seems to work for me.

 

[pclausen]

Aiber, you should be able to pick up a digital thermostat at Lowes or HD. They should come with instructions on how to wire them. I think there are like 7 wires and there is a standard color coding for them as best I recall. Been a long time since I did mine.

Skimmer has been running since this morning and w/the ac set at 70, water temp is holding at 77.9. I just upped the ac to 72 so see if the water temp comes up a couple fo degrees with it.

Things aren't looking so good as far as the rock is concerned. 2 planes have come in and the rock wasn't on either and I haven't been able to get a hold of the seller (in CA) and I have no air bill number or anything to track down the shipment. Looks like the rock will have been in transit a solid 48 hours before I have any hope of getting it in my tank, and it might not even be until tomorrow that I can pick it up as Continental isn't showing anything currently in transit from LAX to RIC.

Guess I'll really get to find out just how bad uncured live rock smells...