Sonicboom's 180 build in Tampa

Since it's a weekday the temp in the house is 81 and the ac won't kick on till 82. Yeah I sweating my @!=/ off..lol the fan was moved to the fridge because I didn't like how there was no circulation in it. I have been going through just over 1/2 gallon a day topoff. At this time yesterday the tank was at 80.5 degress.
 
So your thinking the cooled ATO going into the tank will be cool enough to lower the tempature of the tank? I'm a bit sceptical.
Along the same lines, maybe a large Pex cooling coil in the fridge and a coil in the tank?? I don't know, with out searching I'm sure there are many DIY fridge cooling projects out there.
I really comes down to cooling efficiency and electrical costs of running the cooling set up. Being sceptical again I bet that eight year old college beer fridge sucks as a tank cooling solution!
 
vair said:
So your thinking the cooled ATO going into the tank will be cool enough to lower the tempature of the tank? I'm a bit sceptical.
Along the same lines, maybe a large Pex cooling coil in the fridge and a coil in the tank?? I don't know, with out searching I'm sure there are many DIY fridge cooling projects out there.
I really comes down to cooling efficiency and electrical costs of running the cooling set up. Being sceptical again I bet that eight year old college beer fridge sucks as a tank cooling solution!
Click to expand...

well my RO/DI sits out in the garage and here in the pit of hell in the summer it can easily get to 110 + degrees in the sun and short of that in the shade.. My plan was instead of having the water sit in the house to cool down only to get to maybe 78 degrees, to then add it to the topoff container, I could cool the topoff container itself and let that 50 degree water "help" with keeping the tank temp stable. It proved today that if i let 1/2 gallon straight into the tank within a few min it drops the temp 1 degree. If the fridge holding the fish food and a few drinks for me also keeps the Topoff water cool, Its a win win for me. :dance:


vair said:
AC at 82??? Turn the damn thing on, 82 is a day at the beach around these parts... If we had a beach.
Click to expand...

lol, it's a weekday and i was supposed to be at work so it was on away mode. it won't start cooling until 6pm.
 
Sonicboom said:
So I acquired a small fridge which had stopped cooling with the intention to take a look at it and see if I could get it working. I planned to use it to store the additives and fish food and whatever else was in the main fridge my wife did not approve of. Anyway I had a feeling it was the starter relay so I ordered a new one for 21.99. Popped it on as soon as it arrived and low and behold she cranked right up and within 15 min was down to 50 degrees. I wanted to leave it running overnight so I put my 5 gallon top off container in it to see if it could cool it down. With in a few hours it was down to 46 degrees measured with a blue point laser thermometer. Then I got the idea to eliminate the middle man and place the top off container in it instead of the one I use to fill it.

I drilled a 1/4 inch hole for the tubing and ran it through an existing hole in the wall for coaxial cable. Will post results if I can bring tank temp down to 77 from 80 and or anything close to that.
20140528_114914.jpg


20140528_115044.jpg


20140528_114958.jpg
Click to expand...
I might have to copy your idea. I plan on having a small fridge for fish related product and might as well use it to cool the tank.
 
Lol No worries, I just tweaked what everyone else was trying to do. The thing is everything I was reading was people trying to get the tank water to circulate inside the fridge which would never let the fridge stop running. My way the water cools, fridge stops running and cooled top off is returned to the tank. The only thing I changed in my picture was I moved the valve outside the fridge, that way I could even stop or increase flow without even opening the door. The other thing is I need to wrap the tubing for condensation.
 
Also, the closer to the tank the better since less heat will be transferred to the tubing with a shorter run. Right now my run is about 7 ft. And if I can figure out how to insulate such a thin tube I should see an improvement in cooling. This mornings temp was 80.5 at 7am. It's 79.5 right now.
 
So I went to Lowe's and picked up some 6 ft rubber insulation, of course I needed about 12 ft. About an hour later I could feel the unwrapped half nice and cold. I was losing a TON of cold from that darn up wrapped tubing. Anyways should be much better cooling now. One other design flaw was I ran the tubing close to the sump led which was warning the tubing...:headwalls:
 
egg crate and phosphates

egg crate and phosphates

Conducted my own little experiment after reading posts of egg crate leaching phosphates into a tank.
I added a rectangle of egg crate to the right corner of my 180 and wedged it between the overflow and glass. It is 18 inches long by about 9 inches wide for each panel. Then there are small pieces on each side about 3rd and a rectangle foot so it retains its shape.

Within a few days algae started appearing on the rock just below it, then it spread to the power heads and sand bed but only closest to the eggcrate. Power head on right side is green and Jebao on left is clean.
Right side
20140603_103548.jpg


Left side with no eggcrate
20140603_103613.jpg
 
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Did your phosphate levels go up? I wonder if the white color draws in more light causing the algae spike. Interesting.
 
Read this on another forum:

I'd like to offer a better solution, but I've only found 1 solution for stopping algae growth on white egg crate... well 2 really.

1) Paint it with Krylon Plastic Fusion paint (I did black). Make sure it's really clean and coat it several times. This works reasonably well... sort of...
2) Throw it away and by black egg crate. This is a permanent solution. It costs more, but it's 100% effective for me.
 
Mark... said:
Read this on another forum:

I'd like to offer a better solution, but I've only found 1 solution for stopping algae growth on white egg crate... well 2 really.

1) Paint it with Krylon Plastic Fusion paint (I did black). Make sure it's really clean and coat it several times. This works reasonably well... sort of...
2) Throw it away and by black egg crate. This is a permanent solution. It costs more, but it's 100% effective for me.
Click to expand...

Hahaha, that sounds just like something i would do!
 
FuzzyZipperbaum said:
I guess I missed it but what exactly is your goal with the mini fridge....what's the tank temp and what r u trying to get it too?
Click to expand...

I noticed now that my tank temp climbs to about 82 when the AC is off all day or goes on away mode and sets itself to 85 until 6pm. Then i noticed my topoff water was 80 degrees and i wasn't even more heat to the tank. Then i started putting gallons of water in the fridge but quickly ran out of room, then my wife said her grandfathers fridge i gave him stopped working, so i picked up the fridge and fixed it and she said "now you can put your water in there"..and there went the light bulb...lol now the topoff is coming in at about 50 degrees which is much better than 80. :dance:
 
In regard to the egg crate and phosphates, I was told by a chemist that egg crate has no phosphates, but another person mentioned mold release agents. I wonder if they have phosphate in them and that's the cause...
 
That's some good info, it's been 48 hrs since I removed the egg crate and the algae on the left is gone and the right side of tank is turning brown. My guess is it should be barely visible in the next day or two.
 
Sonicboom said:
That's some good info, it's been 48 hrs since I removed the egg crate and the algae on the left is gone and the right side of tank is turning brown. My guess is it should be barely visible in the next day or two.
Click to expand...

You have to show the pics of the change.

I'd love to see identical tanks run together with one as a control and the other with white egg crate and then run phosphate tests over a few weeks.
 
I will definitely post some pics, I have some extra egg crate and might try my experiment on the opposite side. Just not sure when. .
 
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