A Reef Tank in the Desert - +/- 1,400 gallon system

I have a dehumidifier I'm not using in my garage. If you want to try it out to see if you want to buy one you are welcome to. When I used it I had 450 total gallons of water. The dehumidifier is an ok solution and if possible I would only use it as a backup. IMO it produces more heat than an AC unit, and it sucks up quite a lot of electricity. I've always been interested in the fans but I'm not sure about the cost durring the summer months due to the demand it may place on the ac unit (maybe it is not that much but I'm not sure).
 
BigOldReef said:
In my kitchen and master bath I installed inline turbine fans. The Fans are silent. In my kitchen you only hear the air rushing out. They move a bunch of air.

Perhaps your contractor could figure out how to install one in your configuration.

The wall mount fans, which would be simple solution do make a bunch of noise.

The inline fans I used were Fantech I think. They are a little more expensive for the fan, but not outrageous. But as far as noise goes they are your friend !
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I'll check with my a/c contractor about the Fantech units. I notice that they also have some dehumidifiers on their website listed.

My concern would be removing the cool air out of the fish room. I certainly don't want to cool my back yard although I am told that the high expected today is 107!!!
 
jjk_reef00 said:
I have a dehumidifier I'm not using in my garage. If you want to try it out to see if you want to buy one you are welcome to. When I used it I had 450 total gallons of water. The dehumidifier is an ok solution and if possible I would only use it as a backup. IMO it produces more heat than an AC unit, and it sucks up quite a lot of electricity. I've always been interested in the fans but I'm not sure about the cost durring the summer months due to the demand it may place on the ac unit (maybe it is not that much but I'm not sure).
Click to expand...

Thanks Ed.

I may take you up on it when I get back to Tucson. I used to use one at our cabin in Pinetop. I don't remember the heat build up. We used it more to cool off the place in the summer.

I am very intrigued by the fans and whether or not they will leave the cold air and just pull out the humidity.
 
NVfishman said:
For my tank over flowing what I did was put a floor drain in with cuts in the floor to direct it to the drain.

For my fishroom I went with a ductless AC room is about 150 sq ft
brand was Daikin have it on swing mode so it spreads the cool air around the room rather then hitting on tank and dropping the temp

Another thing I like in my fishroom is a duct fan with a humidity sensor that goes on when the humidity gets to 60% kick out the mist air through attic duct.

I would say go with a similar fan over the tank to pull out the heat ( I have a 110 cfm fan to pull out heat but looks like u got Leds

just a few things I picked up on my second time around building my fishroom

good luck definitely going to follow this thread
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Can you tell me a little more about your duct fan with the humidity sensor??? Who makes it? How it works?
 
Humidity Sensor is just like a thermostat on the wall. Ranco, who makes great temperature controllers makes one, there are other suppliers. You can find them inexpensively through either HVAC suppliers, or through nursery suppliers. Orchid growers uses Humidity controllers to control the humidity in green houses.

You could also use a humidity sensor to trip a relay to then trip your Reef Keeper and have it in turn control the fan. This would give you the ability to monitor how often your fan is going on/off.

You also mentioned you had an exterior wall in the fishroom... Could you mount the Dehumidifier outside the room an exterior of the house and just put a duct into the fish room?

Dave
 
Barcelona, Espana

Barcelona, Espana

So the last few days have been pretty exciting here.

My 13 year old son discovered that the beaches are topless. We made it to the Barcelona Aquarium and a few LFS's... We drank several beers and watched with the natives as Spain beat Italy in the Euro Cup.

Not a bad couple of days.

I must say that I have been disappointed in the two LFS that we went to here. While both maintained several marine aquariums, both lacked significant coral inventory. The setups and both locations was also lacking. Only a few tanks had protein skimmers (they were undersized, hang on the back...) and all were running on eheim canister filters. One larger aquarium had a sump. Fish inventory was limited to a few yellow tangs, cardinals, fire fish, damsels and chromis. Nothing unique or special.

The Barcelona Aquarium was worth the trip. While they had large displays of sharks and rays, they did have several smaller tanks set up with a large variety of fish from the Mediterranean.

I did not have my camera with me but I took several shots with my daughters:

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Several tanks, albeit large tanks, had 2 or 3 achilies and clown tangs together. All of the fish in the aquariums looked healthy except for all of the yellow tangs. We must have seen at least 3 dozen and how had either lateral line disease, fin rot or all have just been getting beaten up or picked on by their tank mates.

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Awesome pics man, so their fish stores had about the same selection of fish as ours? Hope your vacation is going well, drink some beers for the rest of us.
 
BigOldReef said:
Humidity Sensor is just like a thermostat on the wall. Ranco, who makes great temperature controllers makes one, there are other suppliers. You can find them inexpensively through either HVAC suppliers, or through nursery suppliers. Orchid growers uses Humidity controllers to control the humidity in green houses.

You could also use a humidity sensor to trip a relay to then trip your Reef Keeper and have it in turn control the fan. This would give you the ability to monitor how often your fan is going on/off.

You also mentioned you had an exterior wall in the fishroom... Could you mount the Dehumidifier outside the room an exterior of the house and just put a duct into the fish room?

Dave
Click to expand...

Thanks Dave. I can put the fan on the exterior wall or can run duct through it. I just need to make sure that it will be quiet on the outside. We spend a lot of time on the back porch, weather permitting, eating, watching the wildlife, etc.

I already emailed my a/c contractor to look into for me!
 
aquaph8 said:
Awesome pics man, so their fish stores had about the same selection of fish as ours? Hope your vacation is going well, drink some beers for the rest of us.
Click to expand...

We are having a great time! Thank you for asking...

The fish selection has been poor and the quality of the tanks has been disappointing. Simply Elegant and GQ Fish are much cleaner and have much better presentations.

I did find one store that I want to go visit. They have a great "on-line" presence here: Dauer AcuarIos. http://daueracuarios.onbile.com/
 
soccer and bars is the only thing they got going for em! Pet Stores (in general) are horrible in spain

celebrated the win in newark with a bunch of roudy spaniards.. a boring game regardless.. the portugal spain game was terrible and im both spanish and portugese
 
Barcelona LFS

Barcelona LFS

So after asking around in Spanish and much searching on the internet, we took a train to one of the LFS' in Barcelona before dinner tonight. All the stores here close at 3:00 or so in the afternoon for siesta and end up reopening around 6:00.

Well, this has definitely been the most impressive store that I have come across abroad. The quality of livestock was good, although limited. As far as their coral selection - mostly frags of LFS.

Their equipment and dry goods department was insane. Walls of replacement parts for Eheim pumps, filters, heaters, chillers, etc. They are big on ozone and CA reactors. Lot of variations of CO2 equipment. I didn't see any protein skimmers for sale - that surprised me. Lots of dosing pumps, timers... Products made by sera.

Cool store. Crowded for space, busy, full of merchandise.

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Check out some of the live stock:

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I am hoping to check out one other store before we leave for Madrid on Saturday.
 
S14Swap240sx said:
soccer and bars is the only thing they got going for em! Pet Stores (in general) are horrible in spain

celebrated the win in newark with a bunch of roudy spaniards.. a boring game regardless.. the portugal spain game was terrible and im both spanish and portugese
Click to expand...

Everyone in the Barcelona went nuts with the game. They were setting off fireworks and fire crackers everywhere! Each time Spain would score, you would hear thousands of car horns going off. People would run out to their balcony's and scream "GOAL!" It was a great experience!

We did find a few good LFS... I love the Country though.

Yes, the Spain Portugal game was great!
 
allsps40 said:
Wow every Ehiem part ever made.
Click to expand...

You aren't kidding. I never saw such a thing. I felt like I was on a plumbing isle at the Home Depot.

This is the place that I am going to tomorrow in Madrid.

http://www.coral-reef.es/

It looks really cool. I believe that it is the largest saltwater LFS in Madrid. They have had some really good stock in the store according to their blogs and inventory list. Their pricing isn't bad either. Just too bad I can't bring it back to the states. I am sure that Michael @ SEA will be able to get me anything I am looking for. From a post I read, these guys are the first to be importuning ORA clownfish into Europe.

I am looking forward to visiting it!!!
 
Holy Fish Tank!!!! Thats a LOT of Ehiem parts. Looks like you've had some very cool fish store trips! Is your family into it too, or are they out at the amusement parks while your checking out the LFS? :D
 
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