How do you guys deal with humidity in the fish rooms?

victor_c3

victor_c3

Premium Member
I'm getting ready to I move into a new house and I'm finally going to be able to build the system I've been planning for years now. I plan on having a 400 gallon display in my living room and, in the basement, I'm going to setup a large fish room with about 1,500 gallons of sump and coral propagation tanks.

The display in the living room will have a canopy so I'm not worried at all about that tank. However the fish room will have a number of large open tanks and I expect it to be quite humid.

The fish room in the basement will be sealed off from the rest of the house.

What is the best way to control the heat and humidity in this room? Is it as simple as just having an appropriately sized dehumidifier? Am I worrying about this too much? What do you guys do with your systems in regards to this?

Thanks for any thoughts and input!
 
I have a 110cfm fan that exhausts from my fish room (more like a large closet) to the outside. Depending on the size of your room, you may need multiple fans, or even an HRV system.
 
How do you guys deal with humidity in the fish rooms?

You will need to worry about cooling as well. I would suggest looking into a mini split ac system. It will control all of your issues.
 
There will always be a pressure difference on opposite sides of your house so two openings will do the job for you.
 
That is some great information and a huge help. Any idea on the sizing for a dehumidifier and split AC system?

I haven't really figured out the exact size the fish room is going to be, but it might be as large as 26' x 16'. I have a 26' x 60' slab basement that has incredibly short ceilings of 5'8". I'm 5'5" so it works for me, but I'll never be able to finish the space and turn it into a livable area. So a song as I can fit in the piles of my family's junk, a furnace, and a hot water heater the space s pretty much all mine to do with what I please.

Again, thanks.
 
cabinetman123 said:
A small fan venting to the outside. Doesn't take much
Click to expand...

+1

I have a 550 cfm fan (way overkill) that is ducted from the lighting soffit above my built in display that's routed to the outside. It also draws some air from below the tank via a channel in the wall. This eliminates virtually all tank generated humidity.

The downside I see to using dehumidifiers is that they can cause the tanks to evaporate much more water. We had a copper line leak in our slab that resulted in some wet walls. A dehumidifier was placed in our pantry as well as in our laundry room and bathroom downstairs. My tank evaporated between 50 and 60 gallons in less than 24 hours. That was more than 10x the normal evaporation rate of my 650 gallon total volume system. Granted these were large dehumidifiers but any dehumidifier will cause increased evaporation. As such, my first choice is and always has been ducting the room to the outside.
 
slief said:
+1

I have a 550 cfm fan (way overkill) that is ducted from the lighting soffit above my built in display that's routed to the outside. It also draws some air from below the tank via a channel in the wall. This eliminates virtually all tank generated humidity.

The downside I see to using dehumidifiers is that they can cause the tanks to evaporate much more water. We had a copper line leak in our slab that resulted in some wet walls. A dehumidifier was placed in our pantry as well as in our laundry room and bathroom downstairs. My tank evaporated between 50 and 60 gallons in less than 24 hours. That was more than 10x the normal evaporation rate of my 650 gallon total volume system. Granted these were large dehumidifiers but any dehumidifier will cause increased evaporation. As such, my first choice is and always has been ducting the room to the outside.
Click to expand...

50-60 gallons a day is an insane amount of evaporation!

Venting the room via a fan outside sounds like a good idea 3/4 of the year, but I'm kind of wondering how that will work in the winter when it is 15 degrees or colder outside. Except I guess that more than 1,000 gallons of 79 degree water probably helps to keep the fish room from getting too cold in the winter.

So far, just plain ol' venting it sounds the cheapest and easiest way.
 
Plenty of humidity controlled fan switches out there too. Have it come on at say 40% humidity and not run 24/7 and you're golden
 
i have a panasonic bathroom fan with a built in humidistat. Its a DC model. Very quiet and uses very little power. I actually just run it all the time because of the lack of noise and power consumption. After i completed my 850sqft addition i was a little worried about the increased utility bills. They have actually gone up so little i'm amazed. I talked to my contractor about it and because on the improvements in furnace efficiency, insulation and the advance in led room lighting ill likely one see and small increase in the summer also. I had the entire old ac and furnace replaced (20 years old) and then split it into two smaller zones. Of course, wish i could say the same for my property taxes!
 
I'm running a small dehumidifier, which is going to be tied into the exterior drain line. I'm also running a fan in the room, but need to get a vent and humidistat installed. Just don't have the funds to do it right now.
 
Fans and dehumidifiers are the basic options. The fans are cheaper and easier but then your house makes up that air every time someone opens a door or Windows etc so heating and cooling bills get higher. If the outside climate is favorable most of the time this is great. Since you seems to be in a colder Climate a dehumidifier may be better but if you make the air too dry it increases the rate of evap. If you could also just pay a mechanical engineering to design and install humidity control into your central home system
 
I run one ceiling bathroom exhaust fan into the fish room and one pointing the other way out of the fish room. Both are ducted. It's a small room, maybe 7x7' and stays at about 45% humidity with about 25g of evaporation per day. Total cost was less than $100 in materials.

I have a mini split but only use that if I need to climb on top of the tank to do maintenance since it's really hot up there with the lights.
 
i just installed a Fujitsu heating cooling and dehumidifier system , about 2.5k but keeps the room perfect temp and seperate for the rest of the house. humidity was getting pretty bad.
 
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