Do I need a chiller?

[blennielove]

Okay, if you looked at my posts...they've been all on chillers. And after installing mine...I'm thinking, wait, maybe I don't need one after all...It's my 28 gal nano. Temperature runs from 78 degrees lights off then rises to 84 degrees at the end of the night. There are temperature ranges in nature, that we know. So...What do you think?
I installed my chiller and it gets too hot in the 28 gal nano stand...I'm putting it outside next to it. Yikes. Do I feel silly right about now! My tanks been running like this for a year now...why am I messing with it?

 

[streetlamp]

Have you thought about just using a fan blowing across the water? Using a small fan and my ReefKeeper Lite, it keeps my 33g between 78.8-80.3 and thats with 350w of MH.

 

[blennielove]

Greetings Cody,
I had a fan blowing across the top of my canopy to help with dispersing the heat, but am unable to place a fan to blow across the water with the canopy.

I tried keeping my hood open and that kept the temperature around 81 but then the evaporation rate was quite fast and I worried about one of my fishes jumping out.
Thanks for your help Cody!

 

[James77]

The evaporation is what is cooling the water. Can you vent the canopy with fans? ie Have 1 or 2 fans blowing in, with holes on top or in the back exhausting the hot humid air.

I keep my tank between 81-84 degrees. On really hot days, w/o AC, I have hit 86 with no problems- however my controller kills the halide lighting at that point.

 

[blennielove]

Hi Jim, my tank is one of those Nano Cube HQIs and unless one is very creative, there is not much that you can do to them.
It's funny how things can get more and more expensive in this hobby, this temperature issue all started about three months ago when I started getting some hair algae and red slime algae, my water parameters were still steady and so I got an extra pump to run more current, thinking "more current = more filtration through my live rocks = less algae" then this tank gets warmer and warmer...now me thinks, "A-ha, I've been reading about all the wonderful technologies...I need a chiller!"
All this I guess is what people say "grist for the mill" for my 225.