The Verdict is in!
- Thread starter Zaphod
- Start date
pledosophy
Active member
My prop tanks are 12 am to 8 am.
bergzy
New member
my lights come on at 7pm.
as all my equipment is located in the garage, it gets pretty hot in the garage...thus warming up the water (or cooling it too much in the winter).
thus, i first use a very powerful vornado fan to evap cool the water first. it blows directly onto the water surface as the fan sits about 3 inches above it.
with this config...the chiller rarely kicks in except on the hottest days and here in inland north oc...it can hit 100 on the hottest days!
as all my equipment is located in the garage, it gets pretty hot in the garage...thus warming up the water (or cooling it too much in the winter).
thus, i first use a very powerful vornado fan to evap cool the water first. it blows directly onto the water surface as the fan sits about 3 inches above it.
with this config...the chiller rarely kicks in except on the hottest days and here in inland north oc...it can hit 100 on the hottest days!
NicoleC
New member
LOL. I run a reverse lit fuge. Main tank lights are on 7:30am to 8:30pm (plus an extra half hour on each end for dawn/dusk actinics). The fuge light kicks on at 7:30pm to 8:30am. My 65w fuge light (the $9 LOA fixture) runs hotter than my 4x65w Coralife PC fixture. My temp goes up at night!
In the winter this saves on heating costs, but I pulled the second fan out of the garage to go in the cabinet yesterday; I just need to put it on the timer with the fuge light this weekend.
With the tank rebuild, I may ditch the lighted fuge and just have it be a cryptic zone, since I'll have seagrass and macro in the main tank. I'll have to see how the pH and O2 levels do overnight before I pull the plug completely.
Something that surprised me -- I have my 20g goby/shrimp breeder tank detached from the main system right now because I have the chiller on the back patio instead of inline on pump. Apparently, this separate goby tank has a cooling effect on the overall system. There's no significant surface agitation in the goby tank, so perhaps it is the long PVC run back to the sump that acts as a radiator?
If so, it makes for an interesting cooling idea -- have your overflow run through a few loops of PVC before dumping into the sump.
And no, I don't recommend this for a main tank! I might be worth experimenting with on a prop system or something to see if it works.
In the winter this saves on heating costs, but I pulled the second fan out of the garage to go in the cabinet yesterday; I just need to put it on the timer with the fuge light this weekend.
With the tank rebuild, I may ditch the lighted fuge and just have it be a cryptic zone, since I'll have seagrass and macro in the main tank. I'll have to see how the pH and O2 levels do overnight before I pull the plug completely.
Something that surprised me -- I have my 20g goby/shrimp breeder tank detached from the main system right now because I have the chiller on the back patio instead of inline on pump. Apparently, this separate goby tank has a cooling effect on the overall system. There's no significant surface agitation in the goby tank, so perhaps it is the long PVC run back to the sump that acts as a radiator?
If so, it makes for an interesting cooling idea -- have your overflow run through a few loops of PVC before dumping into the sump.
And no, I don't recommend this for a main tank! I might be worth experimenting with on a prop system or something to see if it works.
