Large Tank IN a Basement-Ventilation Suggestoin Please oh brethern of the mamoth tank

It seems to me that making use of household air can only lead to problems. You have humidity, smell and rust issues. Even if the outside air is warm the air in the hood is always over a hundred with the lights on so any new air should cool. With high enough airflow the evaporation should effect should help cool more.

My ideal system would have a variable speed fan controller that would speed up until the exit air hits a set point.

The second part would have a heat recovery system to use the heat from the exit air to warm the house in winter
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11100959#post11100959 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Whaledriver
It seems to me that making use of household air can only lead to problems.
Click to expand...

How so? We dont setup isolation systems for smaller tanks, say 120G, so that none of the "house" air moves about the tank. In fact, most of the time that same air is being used by fans and the like to help keep the water cool via evaportation. Why would it be different because I'm putting the tank behind a wall?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11100959#post11100959 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Whaledriver
Even if the outside air is warm the air in the hood is always over a hundred with the lights on so any new air should cool. With high enough airflow the evaporation should effect should help cool more.
Click to expand...

So are you saying that maybe I could install an air vent or something to the outside to allow cool air in the room in the winter months?
 
The more tanks you have the more smell that happens. You might not notice it but aquariums add a smell to a house. Ask someone who visits. Most of the time its not bad but it is a smell none the less. Smell your skimmer cup?

A heat recovery air to air exchanger will allow you to use the heat in the winter.

If you have a lot of tanks the humidity becomes a major issue so having the hood air separated from the room also prevents this. I have read a lot of threads about rust an mildew to ignore it. With a bright lighting system you can loose 3% a day to evaporation. With a 1000 gallon tank system that's 30 gallons a day in a 22 x 22 basement a DAY!

The design I have planed but not built is similar to FishTruck but I would run 2 ducts behind the tanks to feed new air and exhaust air. The system would have air tight hoods to separate all the air from the room. Matching intake and exhaust fans should keep the air pressure neutral.
 
I have a 1000g tank with 1000W lamps and it only evaps about 12g/day. But, rust is still an issue. I have stainless tables in my tank room and they rust up. Mold is not an issue in my case, but if my tank were open in my house, it would be a serious issue for sure.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11106142#post11106142 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Whaledriver
With a 1000 gallon tank system that's 30 gallons a day in a 22 x 22 basement a DAY!
Click to expand...

Well it's a good thing I only have a 210 then and my plan is for the air to be taken OUT of the tank room to the outside, not blow it back into the house. So again, I don't see how drawing air from the rest of the living space INTO the tank room and out through a vent fan is a bad thing. I understand moisture in the air being a bad thing and cause for rust and the like, but I'm not blowing it into the living area.
 
Drawing air from the house is not necessarily a bad thing but not necessarily the best thing. CO2 levels in the home can influence your pH in a negative way.

In order to exhaust any given amount of air you must intake the very same given amount of air from somewhere otherwise you would be living in a vacuum.

Negative pressure results from blowing air out of the house that is not replenished by air leaking through cracks and crevices, open windows or doors or other types of "leakage" to the outside. When that happens, air is brought into the house via the "path of least resistance" which is typically DOWN your flue in homes with furnaces that are NOT electric or rated as being 90% efficient OR homes with a gas water heater ( unless power vented). If your gas furnace or hot water heater happens to be running then potentially dangerous exhaust gases are brought back into the house instead of being harmlessly exhausted up your flue. Not a desirable situation, I'm sure you'll agree.

If you have an electric furnace and water heater then flue gases are not a problem. Gas furnaces that are rated as 90% efficient typically have a "flue" made of PVC ard are power vented to the outside and the chance of a negative pressure situation bringing the exhaust gases back into your home are practically non-existent.

If your home can't leak 100 cfm of air then you can't vent 100 cfm of air without some kind of a fresh air intake. If it happens to be very cold or very hot then you are working against your furnace or air conditioner by allowing air to "leak" into your home. It's best to let the air "leak" into the room where it is desired and will do the most good thus keeping the rest of your home more comfortable.

There is NO single solution to keeping humidity at bay unless you never have rain, excessive heat or cold. The solutions are dependent upon the climate in your area, the seasons of the year and even the weather on any given day. What works in one area of the country WILL NOT work in another area of the country unless the climates are identical.

Venting light hoods that are part of a "closed system" may keep your lights cooler but does NOTHING as far as removing humidity from your home except for possibly keeping temperatures down in your room. The cooler the temp of the air in your room, the less moisture it is capable of holding...i.e. the moisture content of the air in a room with 80% humidity at 70 degrees is less than the moisture content of the air in a room with 80% humidity at 90 degrees.
 
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Now that entire explanation makes sense to me. Thanks for chiming in. I believe I do have the 90% efficient utilities you spoke of.
This is a pic of the water heater. The vent goes through pvc to the outside of the house on the side.
A80-071103-0002.jpg


This is the furnace and the vent outside the house.
A80-071103-0003.jpg

A80-071103-0004.jpg


So on your point of replacing exhausted air. Seeing that the wall to the left and just above the tank is to the outside, I was thinking of creating some type of opening that I can open in the winter time to help cool the room and close in the summer to pull more of the cool air from the house. Not quite a window, but an opening that would be a "least resistant path". I was thinking of a screened opening attached to vent shaft with a closeable register or something of sorts. Will this work? Do you have any low cost suggestions?
 
I was thinking of doing an opening similar to bguile. I was going to use one of the standard air intake pieces found at a home improvement store for the outside and put a duct baffle on the inside to close it off.

capncapo, my question is: would it be better to put this intake right into the fish room as is, or run that duct into the cold air return for the whole house?
 
Anything that is weatherproof and can be closed or capped off will work fine. That can include PVC, aluminum, galvanized metal or anything else you might think of.

I think you'll find more air exhaust items at your local hardware store than you will intake items. Most will have some sort of flapper that requires air blowing out in order for the flapper to open. You can always remove the flapper but try to insure that animals and bugs don't have a path into your home if you do.

Personally, I would have the fresh air intake in your fish room if you have a fish room. I would also run it down close to the floor.

If you will be venting the hot air out through the same wall I would place the intake and exhaust as far apart as possible. You don't want to exhaust hot, moist air and then turn around and suck it right back in.
 
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I did a 6" exhaust and a 12" x 14" open attic vent. The vent goes through the tank room wall and is exposed to the outside air under my deck. This affords me cooler air during the Summer, and the exhaust fan is cycled by tank room temperature. I can't use teh humidistat because sometimes it's very humid outside here.
 
air

air

skippyreef here are some ideas and sugestions from a licensed sheet metal worker who also happins to run the apprentice training program in the state of RI

negative air is caused by removing more than replaced it genraly takes a very strong fan to do this

I would not ever run air from your fish room to your furnace because it will cause rust and corrosion in the unit and that can be very expensive and dangerous you will rust the heat exchanger and let carbon monoxide into the house

I would guess that the pipe I saw in one of the pictures going to the furnace area is a freash air or possible combustion air because some units consume a lot of air and can starve and do a poor job of heating when that happens

all you have to do to lower the humidity in your fish room is steel heated or cooled air from other areas and the you will acomplish two things
#1 figure what size the room is in sq ft length x width that is the amount of air you want to move
once you know that figure get a 2 speed fan high being the one you shoot for in fan capicity example 10 x10 room = 100cfm fan on high should do just over 100cfms low being the seasons when the water evap is lower
#2 use a basement window to vent the fan with a dryer vent they come in all sizes lows may have them but any heating supply store will carry them use the size on the fan
then get 2 of the same registers to accomidate the cfms you calculated and install them in the wall across from the exaust fan and the air will exchange with house air that is low in humidity and at the same temp as the house
by doing this you have exausted the air with all the water in it and you replace it with good dryer air at a rate equil to the size of the room at a medium to high rate depending on the speed you choose and your house will thank you for it and your furnace will suffer no ill affects

Good luck
Manny :smokin:
 
OK. Strap on your jocks and see if you can follow me through this one! :D

Review issues with a "closed" system vented in and out from the outside. I am answering my own questions here, but, I am not sure if I am correct. This is Chicago land with all extremes of temp and humidity.

I am planning a sealed headspace above the tank and above my sump. Both exhausting outside and aspirating outside air. Both as close to "air tight" as possible. I will keep the skimmer outside of the sealed area, so that the water will be aereated by skimmer action with constant house air.




Ideal spring and fall. Cool air with reasonably low humidity will ventillate the system, keeping it cool, but not too cool, and venting humidity out of the canopy and the equipment room. Could be controlled to keep the air above the tank below 80 degrees.

1. Extreme Winter. Cold dry air will be coming in which will cool the tank nicely. But, because the cold air cannot hold much water, and there will be a limit to how much I can vent in before the tank starts to get cold. So, the potential problem is a 100% humidity situation above the tank and in the equipment room. Is this a problem?

Also, if it is really cold, there will possibly be very little ventillation.
This could cause CO2 accumulation if the system is really sealed from the house. Could this be counteracted by keeping the skimmer outside of the sealed area?

And... in the winter I could set the above canopy temp to a lower setting to encourage more ventillation. Using heaters to keep the water temp constant.

2. Summer. Hot humid air will be coming in. If it is 90 degrees outside with high humidity, the fan will run constantly, and might not be able to keep the tank temperature down. Hello chiller. I guess as long as the lights don't overheat, this would be o.k., just sucking up lots of electricity.

For a 300 gallon tank, and 180 gallon sump, I am planning a single 120 cfm fan. Maybe I should have two of them with independant temp control? One for the sump, one for the tank? I can start with one and upgrade as needed.

Thanks for any comments.

My tank arrives friday.

:eek:
 
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answer

answer

just use house air for supply it is already the best for the situation and when you get it too damp it is out
 
Well, if it rains for two days straight, I will be venting the tank with humid air. This will keep the lights cool and fresh air over the water, it will just be high humidity. I guess the tank lights can handle that without corrosion problems? It will be isolated from the house anyway.

As backup, I do have the system set up to vent with inside air if I need to from time to time. I could even automate this with another fan and some louvers.

Regarding venting with house air and exhausting outside...
My water heater and furnace have open flus... so I have to avoid negative pressure in the basement.
 
FishTruck
The winter air can be your friend because it is so dry. The key is letting the lights warm the air to the point it can carry away a lot more humidity than in the summer. Another benefit is that in the winter you can use the heat for your house if you set things up right with a heat exchanger. In the summer your last resort is to turn off some lights if temps get to high.

The ideal system would have intake/exhaust fans that can be slowed down depending on the needs of the seasons. My best cheap way would be a pair of 3 speed fans and a 3 speed controller. This would allow you to control the exhaust temp in the winter to keep it from going to low in he winter. In the summer you should be able to cool the tank to the point. Beyond this point you could then have some of the lights go off to lower the heat input. At a certain point when the temps over 95 or 100 you might have to open the tank to your inside air to keep things alive. This could be a simple servo to open the ducting system to the inside air and close it off to the outside air.

This is easier to plan and blog about than to actually do. If I ever get to the point of remodeling my basement I will find out if it works. Hopefully by then a controller computer will be cheap and helpful enough to monitor and control the parameters in all the sasons
 
HRV for winter months may be necessary if you lose too much heat, or simply using exhaust fan with fresh air intake if losing heat is not an issue.

Air conditioning the room via a window unit or split AC would be better for humidity removal and temperature control in the summer months.
 
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