any luck with cooling

[unboundmind]

without a chiller?

 

[Akwarius]

Depends on your situation. Are you running halides, closed hood, water cooled pump, etc?

 

[scubabum1983]

it can be done on the cheap with alot of fans, its tricky, you need to figure out how much you wan the temp to drop and play with a number of fans. i put mine on timers to come on with the lights, and i have one that always stays on. keep them all on all the time and the temp swings too much for me, the downside is you lose alot of water through the evap proces that chills your tank. walmart has good desk fans for about 12 bucks.

 

[Bifferwine]

I also use clip on fans from Walmart. Two of them blowing across the surface of my sump drop my tank's temp by about 8 degrees. I've had tanks in Tucson for 10 years now and have never used a chiller.

 

[Akwarius]

Run a temp controller with fans and setup an auto top off. Cheaper than buying a chiller, plus you can use the controller for other stuff.

 

[prickles]

+1 to the controller and fans. I have 4 cpu fans running on a controller. They keep the temp to 79 in a house that's 78 during the day with about 1800 watts of light in a hood that's sealed except for the fans.

 

[scubabum1983]

what are you guys using for a temp control. something marine specific, or off the shelf, i dont have the cash to spring for a marine one, i just dropped $100 on two black bamboo plants for my back yard, and its going to be awhile for my project cash to build back up.

 

[Akwarius]

RKL basic for $100. It does everything I want: temp control, wavemaker, and light timers with room to expand.

 

[unboundmind]

Thanks everyone, great ideas. My lites are sealed and about 6 inches from the top of the water (85 gallon) tank.

 

[scubabum1983]

if the lights are sealed then throw the fans on the sump

 

[sillygoose]

an Algal Turf Scrubber evapo-cools
with the added benefit of removing nitrates & phosphates
can't say if it would be enough cooling for your situation