ac/moisture for a sm fish room, ideas?

E

Elliott

New member
I have a small fish room off my garage with no windows. It's currently conditioned off the main house ac/heat ventilation system with one duct, however it quickly gets too hot in the summer and needs it's own unit. There is a bathroom style exhaust fan in the ceiling but when left on the temp rises due to conditioned cool air being removed. When off the humidity feels like, well the tropics!

Anyone have a recommendation of a small efficient unit for this application? I'd like it installed on the roof out of view.

many thanks

here is a shot of the room

DSC00577.jpg
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I have a small fish room also and I decided to go with an a/c wall unit and a bathroom exhaust fan.

When I was doing my research, they recommended that I do not run an A/C duct from the main unit. Something about salt getting to the main unit, not good.

I like it separate from the main house, that way I can control the fish room independently.

I'm current looking for ideas to get some type of humidity sensor to control the bathroom exhaust fan.

Ahh, just make sure that you exhaust to the outside, not the attic.
 
What about covering all of those tanks and venting them with some dryer duct? You could do this with outside air, or, an AC unit.

A remote exhaust fan could move the air, and, you could control it with a Aquacontroller with different settings for winter and summer. By the way, what is your climate?

This would require some re organization of your room and some engineering, but, might be more cost efficient than AC for the whole room.

Just an idea.
 
Unless you have a leak in your ducts, running a vent into your fishroom from the main unit will not cause any problems. You definitely do not want an intake in the fish room.
I'm planning on the Broan humidity sensor bathroom fan for my fish room.
 
I like that Broan unit suggested, am looking into the mini split ac, will also look into covering the tanks and venting outside, all good suggestions, many thanks.

our climate here is rather hot, we had 33 days in a row of over 110 F last summer!
 
Last edited:
I use a window AC mounted in the wall in the summer and two inline exhaust fans connected to a thermostat in the winter.. I have one exhaust fan as a intake the other as a exhaust.. So it acts like a air exchanger bringing in fresh cold air and exhausting hot humid air.. In the summer the window ac keeps the room kewl and keeps the humidity down.. When I built my room I covered all the walls with FRP and used pvc trim.. So the moisture doesn't really matter to me. With a smaller fish room I really think you need to waterproof it best you can.
 
I like that idea of input and output fans during the winter, glad to hear the window ac keeps the humidity down during the summer, I find it hard to work in there with so much humidity
 
Just be sure to get a decent sized one.. Your suppose to match the AC to the room size and load.. Well I started out with a 6000 BTU unit cause I was told by my HVAC guy it would be plenty.. I ended up having to replace it with a 8000BTU unit.. The 8000 does great and I can keep the room at what ever tempiture I want.

You will for sure want a way to bring in cool air in during the winter.. My room would get really hot even in the middle of winter.. The fans also come in handy when you clean your skimmer cups :)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11289795#post11289795 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Nanook
How about a mini split AC?
Click to expand...

Sorry for asking, but whats a mini split?

I built a small box in my garage and moved my sump into it to get the noise out of my living room. However I didn't take in consideration all the humidity that would collect in there.

I like the Broan - Humidity Sensing Fan Model QTXE110S idea but was trying to find a cheaper way.

Does anyone know if there a cost effective humidity switch that could turn a fan off and on?


Thanks
Dave
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11324656#post11324656 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Elliott
http://www.farmtek.com/farm/supplies/cat1;ft1_thermostats_controllers;ft1_humidistats.html
Click to expand...

Thanks Elliott. Thats just what I was looking for.

I did do a search and found them just a bit cheaper though. here's the link if others are wanting to do the same.

http://www.rewci.com/huusfordecoc.html

also a alternative to the Humidity Sensing Fan Model QTXE110S I found this.

http://www.improvementscatalog.com/home/improvements/7825-crawl-space-vent.html

It doesn't say how much CFM it moves so I don't know if its better than the Broan or not.
 
I was initially planning to go with an in room rimless tank from AGE, but since I'm installing it in the basement and I've already been fighting water intrusion through the walls, I don't want the risk of high humidity so I've decided to go with an in wall AGE tank ~260 gal. I'm in Michigan so we have cold winters - it's about 20 F outside right now. So, I plan to install a HRV (Heat recovery ventilator) to pull out moist air in the winter while retaining the heat with the incoming dry air. I'll run it off a humidistat. I also plan to install a mini split AC unit for the warmer weather and a Chiller mainly as a backup in case the mini split can't adequately condition the room such that the tank temp is maintained.
 
Oldtimer: I don't know anything about HRV's, need to look into that. So you plan to do both: HRV and mini split ac? will they run simultaneously?

warriorss08: I understand that dehumidifiers put out a lot of heat, making them too problematic for this application
 
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