How do your vent your room?

R

rags111875

New member
Hey folks! Been away for awhile- bought a new house and new tank.
I am in the process of completing a 3-room addition to this house. One of those rooms will host an in-wall 220gallon reef tank. The room for it is only ~8' x8' with 12' high ceilings.
At this time, i have open access to all walls and ceiling.

Do i need to worry about humidity?
Assuming so, what options are there to vent some of that air elsewhere- other rooms or outdoors?
 
I suggest you work with a HVAC company and do put in a vent to the outside. The big considerations are makeup air, and making sure you get fan that is rated for continuous use (and I highly suggest a humidity controlled one, since it will need to run less in the winter as your heater runs etc).

My 2cents. Lots of people (including myself currently) run without any kind of venting, but I will be adding a vent to my sump room for this summer as the de-humidifier alone isn't cutting it.
 
I keep the door to my fish room open to help increase the humidity in the house. It really gets low in the Winter, to the point where I'm losing anywhere from 3 to 5 gallons a day unless I'm running the humidifier. We have over ten wood musical instruments in the house so having the tank helps us keep them in good shape where humidity is concerned.

When I'm cleaning or at times during the Summer when I have high humidity, I have two high end vent fans that draw air out of the fish room to the outside. I shaved off some of the lower part of the door to allow fresh air to enter while the fans are on. My best friend runs a water treatment facility and was surprised at the lack of humidity in the fish room during the Summer. But, like I said, I typically leave the door open with the ceiling fan running and it keeps the humidity fairly normal. Total water volume in the fish room is typically around 400 gallons.
 
A panasonic whisper exhaust fan with a humidity switch is a great choice:



This is a step one must simply do...or humidity can do a lot of damage to a home.
 
A small room like that can hold a lot of moisure especially in the NJ summers. I have same size tank and other stocks tanks in basement and found out the hard way about moisture during the summer - had mold all over the walls. A dehumidifier did the trick for me, but in your case would consider simple venting options like windows..maybe transom windows located up high in those tall ceilings?
 
i like the idea of an exhaust fan. Would it be overkill (or useful, at least) to have a ceiling fan in addition to an exhaust fan?
 
rags111875 said:
i like the idea of an exhaust fan. Would it be overkill (or useful, at least) to have a ceiling fan in addition to an exhaust fan?
Click to expand...

In terms of the humidity the exhaust fan moves humid air out of the house while the ceiling fan moves the same air within the house and typically stabilizes temperature.:o
 
My tank is drywalled in from top to bottom. As such, the brunt of my humidity is consolidated above and below the tank. When I built my tank in 18 years ago, I installed a 10" Rotron high CFM fan in the soffit above the tank so that it ducts out of the soffit and exits through ducting to vent outside the house. There is some room between the wall above the tank that leads to the sump space below the tank where I have a vent on the wall. This allows the air to be drawn from above and below the tank to be ducted outside the house. The end result is that I have little to no humidity above or below my tank as well in the adjacent rooms since my tank is more or less sealed off from the rooms. The fan draws the air from above and below and air from the room is drawn in through the spaces around the doors above and below the tank to insure there is a constant flow of fresh air above and below the tank. This fan runs 24/7.

This is the same fan I used.
http://www.amazon.com/Comair-Rotron-020189-Caravel-Cooling/dp/B000J1AJEC

This is a shot of the fan & ducting location in my light soffit. All walls above and below the tank are covered in FRP to prevent humidity damage.
lightstop.jpg


This is the vent below the tank where air is also drawn to be ducted out of the house.
image_zps26fd4750.jpg


A view looking up at the duct in the adjacent closet between the tank and the exterior wall. The fan is inside the widest portion of the duct and screwed to wall that borders the tank on the button side of this photo. The narrow portion of the duct leads to the outside wall.
DSC00440.jpg


This is a more recent shot of the duct between the soffit and the exterior wall. I wrapped sound proofing insulation around the ducting to reduce fan noise as well as noise from air passing through the duct. My bedroom is directly above the tank and this insulation eliminated any fan related noise. Those pulley's and cables are for my electric light rack lift. Looks like some of the duct tape came loose.. Have to put fixing that on my "to do" list. :thumbsup:
image_zps279f36d4.jpg


The vent on the outside of the house
DSC00678.jpg
 
Last edited:
Thats awesome. Glad to hear it has worked so long for you.
Thanks for sharing that. My current situation will allow for similar setup.
what do they say- imitation is the best form of flattery? something like that.
Thx
 
Add this it's a new addition adding a dedicated external hvac unit would be very easy it will not only remove the humidity but will also help with temp control. You'll need a compressor unit not just a window mounted one. Talk to you contractor into installing one.
 
Live in NY,put in a 250 Gallon.
The return for the AC was close to the tank & last winter the ducts filled with water.
After repairs + moving the return, we now run the fan 24/7 to keep things dry. It works.
 
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