The Power of Fans

[vanmle]

I wasn't paying attention and my temp went up to 87+ degreeswhen the lights were on for at least a few days. One colony complete bleached and one half-bleached.

Well, I went to Walmart and bought a $7.84 fan. It is blowing directly down at the water surface and is about 4 inches away from it.

My water temp is now reduced to between 78 and 80 degrees. What a difference a small fan makes. Just added the fan and made no other changes. No further deterioration found. Ambient temperature in my house is about 77 degrees.

The sort of bad news is that now I am evaporating 4 gallons of water a day from 2 gallons a day. Luckily, the room for the fish tank is large and my wife wants some humidity in the house so it is a good thing. She was thinking a getting a humidifier but now we don't need one.

Just thought I would share.

 

[dgin]

Van,
Its amazing how much evaporative cooling can do, I have one of those cheap Walmart box fans in my closed canopy (just partially open back) blowing across and my temps stay around 80 (ambient is around 78). Thats with 3x250DE MH pendants. If it starts to cool off or warm up in the house, I just adjust the speed of the fan (High, Med, or Low) to compensate. Haven't needed a chiller yet. Those Walmart fans are great and are a seasonal item.

 

[RobbyG]

Just be carefull with all that evaporation, I had two problems when I used Fans as my only cooling method.

1) The Salinity starts changing fast so you got to check it often.

2) The Salty humidity released in the room will rust anything that's too close so keep an eye on things that are made of metal and close to the Tank.

 

[jason_rohr]

My tank is smaller 46 gal, but I have a 250de just about 5-6" off the water (because I designed my canopy to shallow)

Invaluable to have the little computer fans from Fry's electronics,
my one 3" fan wasn't cutting it, so I got a 4" which has 3 speed control on it. They kick on and off with the lights.

DO watch evap. I bought a float switch, floatswitches.net, and lucked out to find a cheap peristaltic pump, bare bones, 12$ unit on ebay, so topoff is constant and my salinity stays perfect

I'm in Flagstaff, the extra humidity from the tank is really great. Prob 1 gal a day!

 

[ZoeReef]

I'm using a walmart fan as well but I'm interesting in doing a computer fan mod on my 24g nano. I'm thinking about making some type of platform out of plexiglass. Anyone done something similar?

 

[aztbs]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7189520#post7189520 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ZoeReef
I'm using a walmart fan as well but I'm interesting in doing a computer fan mod on my 24g nano. I'm thinking about making some type of platform out of plexiglass. Anyone done something similar?

This is probably what you are thinking about:

link

 

[ZoeReef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7189738#post7189738 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by aztbs
This is probably what you are thinking about:

link

Exactly..Thanks!

 

[Jaynap]

You and I were in the exact same boat last week. Check my thread about saving 475 dollars---

I noticed a big increase in evaporation also, but my RO is only about 5 feet away.

 

[RayinAZ]

I'm sure this question has been asked before--every time this year--but is there a good local source for a cheap auto-top off system (which doesn't require too much do it yourself work?)

I don't have much room under the tank, so if anyone knew of a small system, I'd appreciate it.

Ray