Randy's 180G Reef-Photo Journal

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7557601#post7557601 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
Ours never goes below 76 but normally is at 77 or 78. It's been in the mid 90's lately and very humid a lot of the time. I must be pretty acclimated - I don't think I'd be comfortable in the house with the AC set at 73! Even at 76 it feels on the chilly side to me but it sure would solve my warm tank issues! It is pretty much one-to-one that the tank temperature is tied to the house temperature.

:lol: Must be acclimated to it. In the winter I keep my house at 19C, which is 66.2F. Guess I'm acclimated to the cold!

Don't get me wrong, I'd trade weather any day!

Tyler

 

[gkarshens]

Notice that both of the guys that keep there house at 73 live in Canada! I bet it gets down into the 60s at night there. Us southerners sweat if we go outside even in the middle of the night. All kidding aside I keep my house at 75 when I am home and 78 when I am gone. We just got a new AC installed 2 months ago and my bill went from $300 a month last summer to $125 a month so far this year.

 

[Cprowler]

I like it crisp and since I just doled out a wack of cash for the new unit I want to get my moneys worth. :lol:

Your right it was the low 60's last night, down right chilly.

We were told that the new unit would add about $30 a month to the electric bill in the summer, but that was a sales guy. I hope it's close to that, it only gets to the mid 90's here not 110 and our house is fairly well insulated.

 

[rdmpe]

Our house insulation is a joke. The house was built in 1965, it is cinderblock with drywall. No insulation. There is some insulation in the attic, but it could be better as well.

66 in the house??? Isn't that dangerous? Hypothermia or something like that? :lol:

 

[Cprowler]

Yeah, I meant 60's out side at night. :lol:

 

[Cuby2k]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7557815#post7557815 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tomkb
This may be way out there, . . would there be any economics with a solar panel and battery, . . . .

Also, this may be way out there also, but what about running your pipes underground, kind of a loop, to take advantage of geothermic cooling? . . . .

just thoughts, maybe someone else is already doing this.

Good points I think Tom, there are a couple of other threads out there that discuss the geothermal cooling, maybe on the solar powered fans too.

After my initial sticker shock at the ridiculously high cost of a tiny little 1/3 to 1/2 HP chiller I was determined that there was a much less expensive option out there. :eek2:

I have spent a significant amount of time doing research and crunching numbers, which really is an expense as well, and it looks to me that the option of solar power is still incredibly expensive. AND, unless you can justify free labor for the geothermal loop and can pick up the piping from a dumpster, this option is pretty spendy as well.

So, aside from the good old Ace Hardware fan plugged into the wall outlet, I think the cost of a chiller is not that bad.

The load that is placed on the home AC system is significant, around 1/3 of a ton for my 180 and you pay for that one way or the other.

Consider: 1/2 ton x 1.1 kWh/ton x $.11/kWh x 1200 hours = $73/year. Simple payback on other options would be 15 years.

Of course, YMMV.

 

[tgunn]

Yes, yes, I'm in Canada and it's much colder here all year long. :lol:

I have a feeling my tank must be adding a fair bit of a load on the A/C system from all the evaporation and the heat the halides pump out.. It got up to 29C outside the other week and the A/C ran constantly all day to keep the temp inside at 24C.

And that's WITH a well insulated house (my attic is over R40).. I have a feeling my A/C unit is not performing up to spec.

Tyler

 

[Cuby2k]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7558532#post7558532 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tgunn
Yes, yes, I'm in Canada and it's much colder here all year long. :lol:

I have a feeling my tank must be adding a fair bit of a load on the A/C system from all the evaporation and the heat the halides pump out.. It got up to 29C outside the other week and the A/C ran constantly all day to keep the temp inside at 24C.

And that's WITH a well insulated house (my attic is over R40).. I have a feeling my A/C unit is not performing up to spec.

Tyler

tgunn, your leaving air temperature should be around 20 deg F.cooler than the room temp. If it's warmer than that your system is either improperly sized or not properly charged.

BUT, if when running all day long it maintains the right space temp then it is sized properly.

 

[rdmpe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7557815#post7557815 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tomkb
This may be way out there, but with all the sunshine, would there be any economics with a solar panel and battery, say powering your little fans, possibly one of your pumps, or maybe sump lighting.

Also, this may be way out there also, but what about running your pipes underground, kind of a loop, to take advantage of geothermic cooling? I'm wondering if you would need a larger pump though that would offset your cost savings.

Not all the water would have to run underground, but say some T valve with a small flexible hose.

just thoughts, maybe someone else is already doing this.

How did I miss this post??? Very interesting idea running a fan off a solar panel that catches the stray light not entering the tank. Although I think those solar panels are fairly pricey. Something for me to look into though.

If I were ever to go with a chiller, I would have to plumb it outside of the house. I don't want my lights and that chiller dumping more heat into my room... I'd want to take the heat out of the house (which is what the central AC has to do currently).

More things to consider...

 

[rdmpe]

Almost forgot - on the geothermal cooling, that would be tough I think, especially using pvc or some other material that is not a great heat conductor (compared to metal).

I met a guy setting up a coral prop biz down in the Ft. Lauderdale area and he had set up a geothermal cooling system that was several hundred feet of pvc buried several feet deep. Turns out that it didn't work well due to poor heat conduction, added heat by the pumps required, etc. I think he ended up scrapping the idea, not positive though. But when I spoke to him about it he wasn't impressed with his results.

I haven't run into any moisture problems in the house so far, so I think evap is the most effective cooling method for me so far...

 

[melev]

npaden (Nathan) has a HUGE refugium tied into his tank, and it is dug down and buried into the ground of his fishroom. I think it is 6' in diameter, and used to be a large water holding tank with the top cut off. That has been his method of keeping his reef tank cool. I think it is 4' in the ground.

 

[rdmpe]

The deep groundwater around here is at a constant 72F. There are springs at many state parks where you can swim year round in this water that is welling up from deep underground. Even a shallow well just 40' deep or so would probably provide somewhat cool water for a heat exchanger setup. But I don't see myself getting into that project any time soon...

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7558592#post7558592 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Cuby2k
tgunn, your leaving air temperature should be around 20 deg F.cooler than the room temp. If it's warmer than that your system is either improperly sized or not properly charged.

BUT, if when running all day long it maintains the right space temp then it is sized properly.

I'll have to measure the air temp and see how much it's cooling...

I would've thought that the A/C should cycle on and off throughout the day to maintain the temperature inside rather than running constantly....

I have a feeling being from '89 it's probably lost some of it's charge or is just plain inefficient.

Tyler

 

[tomkb]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7558827#post7558827 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
Almost forgot - on the geothermal cooling, that would be tough I think, especially using pvc or some other material that is not a great heat conductor (compared to metal).

I met a guy setting up a coral prop biz down in the Ft. Lauderdale area and he had set up a geothermal cooling system that was several hundred feet of pvc buried several feet deep. Turns out that it didn't work well due to poor heat conduction, added heat by the pumps required, etc. I think he ended up scrapping the idea, not positive though. But when I spoke to him about it he wasn't impressed with his results.

I haven't run into any moisture problems in the house so far, so I think evap is the most effective cooling method for me so far...

Well, pvc or any other rubber or plastic material would be a poor conductor. Copper might be your best bet and cheapest but we all know copper is bad for the water. Maybe there is another metal that is not dangerous to the water. Maybe stainless steel pipes, that's what ocean boats use to prevent corrosion.

 

[rdmpe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7559886#post7559886 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tomkb
Well, pvc or any other rubber or plastic material would be a poor conductor. Copper might be your best bet and cheapest but we all know copper is bad for the water. Maybe there is another metal that is not dangerous to the water. If I recall correctly, old homes built before 1950 used something else.

Older homes probaby used black iron pipe I think. the best thing would probably be stainless steel or titanium :eek1:

For now I'm thinking that a small bank of fans across the open top of the tank will do the trick. The LFS sells a slick setup similar to this one http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7773897352 but for a better price. Right now my lights are sitting on some 2x4s that are in the way, but that is the eventual plan...

 

[tomkb]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7559978#post7559978 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
Older homes probaby used black iron pipe I think. the best thing would probably be stainless steel or titanium :eek1:

For now I'm thinking that a small bank of fans across the open top of the tank will do the trick. The LFS sells a slick setup similar to this one http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7773897352 but for a better price. Right now my lights are sitting on some 2x4s that are in the way, but that is the eventual plan...

whoops, I editted my post just before you clicked submit! But, yes, stainless might be the option.

 

[tomkb]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7560006#post7560006 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tomkb
whoops, I editted my post just before you clicked submit! But, yes, stainless might be the option.

Well, I'm an IT guy who works with servers and heat is constantly a concern.

I remember a situation where there was a heat problem. A new air conditioning system was purchased. It made absolutely no change to the problem. But, a simple household fan was placed behind the server racks and instantly the room started dropping in temperature, in fact, it came down about 8 degrees. I'm not entirely sure why it worked, but all I know is it helped the lingering heat in the back of the servers make it's way up to the exhaust fan.

So, I think the fact you are using 2x4's is a good idea, you are preventing more heat transfer.

Now let's talk about computer CPU's. Computers run hot nowadays, everything is so small. All these CPU's have these huge heat syncs attached to them, kind of like metal fins that the air flow can make there way through. Maybe something like that could work for you.

I bet you see a noticable heat reduction by simply blowing fans across the top of your light fixtures. You might see a larger reduction if the fixtures had more metal attached to them to radiate the heat away with a fan, kind of like a cars radiator.

 

[rdmpe]

I was kicking around some ideas a while back and contacted a couple of vendors that sell water cooling kits for overclocked computer cpu's (I used to be into that...) but all of their radiators are aluminum...

 

[rdmpe]

The biggest drop in water temp comes from the evaporation though. The phase change to vapor takes a lot of heat out of the tank. So blowing the fan across the water surface really works well. I think that it also helps that there is fresh air moving between the hot halides and the water surface too. But I think evap is the ticket.

My light fixture has fans built in that move a decent amount of heat out of the fixture - although the housing still gets really hot. And the glass covering the halides - :eek1: that is REALLY hot stuff!!!

 

[rdmpe]

As a matter of fact, I melted part of a plastic bag against the glass right under the halide bulb last weekend when putting the RBTA in the tank! Oops! I scraped most of it off, but there is still some there, it has turned somewhat brown. I know I need to razor it off when the glass is cool one of these mornings...