Coralife BioCube 29g Build
For the temp swings that is a bit odd. Which heater do you have and which chamber is it in relation to your temp probe? There might also be a local rapidled setup for sale soon if I decide to buy a third kessil for my biocube. I like the looks of it on there though I bought ti for the upgrade tank so woudl need to buy third if I wanted to leave it. Nonetheless I can look at the setup next Tuesday when I come spy that rock as well. I will bring my gloves and try to remember the tank.
Forgot to answer this. My heater is the Cobalt Neotherm 100W. I set the temp at 76 degrees. This is currently on an Apex controlled outlet that only gets power to it if the temp drops below 77 degrees and doesn't get power at all if 78 or over. So it's not like the heater is already going rogue on me.
The temp probe IS in the same chamber, which is in chamber two. I do not have a probe clamp, and at least two days early-on the probe wound up halfway out of the water and was reading a much lower temp before I caught it, but I have since placed the probe very deep in the chamber and any time I check it now, it is staying put. I do need to get some form of clamp though.
When I was watching my temp swing before the skimmer was installed and turned on, it would increase to maybe 79 degrees at its peak, and then as the lights turned off it would bottom out around 77. If I opened the back and front smaller lids it would drop all the way down to 76 and hang there overnight until the lights came on again, but still never go above 79.0 if it even got there (with the lids open I don't think it even hit 78). However, once I installed and turned on the skimmer, the temp rose considerably and wouldn't drop as far as it would previously, but each day would climb higher. This lead to the tank hitting 82+ and the lights actually turning off via the Apex.
When it did that, I unplugged the skimmer and opened the lids and the temp dropped fairly rapidly back in line. I have left it unplugged since and again the temp is never getting above 79.
While not as scientific as I would like the testing to be (I have been uber busy and since there is nothing in the tank am not as concerned yet), it seems fairly conclusive. Because the temps seemed to be very stable with the lids open, I decided to look for a way to add cooling fans and came across the model I posted a link for. I think they arrive today and I'm interested in how they work out, but my idea is to remove the back lid completely and place the fan strip to the left side which leaves the skimmer cup exposed. The 6 fan strip seemed to be almost the perfect length to take up almost all of the space the original lid used, but since I may need to raise the skimmer higher, I wanted to leave that clear. Besides, the skimmer cup pretty much takes up all the surface area of chamber one, so a fan over it wouldn't provide much benefit anyway.
I'll post pics of the setup once I get it configured. Like the original lid on the hood, the fan strip is designed to open up or position flat over the tank like a regular lid (90° movement). I'm going to have to cut the hood because the brackets only fit 0.5" width, and the lip on the back at the top is about 1" wide. So I'll take the dremel to the lid once more.
Because of what I already have seen with the temps and the back lid being open, I don't expect this fan strip to be on too much.