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07-09-2008, 09:48 PM
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#1 (permalink)
| | Astrea Snail
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 37
Karma: 36
 |  Chiller or no chiller?
I have a 55g fowlr tank. I live in South Florida. As it is a million degrees outside, I have been keeping my air on around the clock around 76 degrees. The tank temperature varies from 79-81.7 degrees. I'm really thinking about adding a chiller just to save me money on electric bill. I'm afraid if I turned the ac off tank will over heat.... What do you all think? | 
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07-09-2008, 09:52 PM
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#2 (permalink)
| | Spaghetti Worm
Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Southern California Age: 22
Posts: 183
Karma: 122
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Quote:
Originally Posted by w000p  I have a 55g fowlr tank. I live in South Florida. As it is a million degrees outside, I have been keeping my air on around the clock around 76 degrees. The tank temperature varies from 79-81.7 degrees. I'm really thinking about adding a chiller just to save me money on electric bill. I'm afraid if I turned the ac off tank will over heat.... What do you all think? | Turning the AC off will likely up the temp on your tank. I have a problem where my AC in my house doesn't circulate in the room I have my tank in very well, and I've had a temp up to 84 F. Luckily, the tank has no inhabitants yet (save for hitchhicking mushroom coral and possibly some feather dusters), so I have time to get it figured out. I am personally thinking about getting either a chiller, or modifying a mini fridge. | |
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07-09-2008, 10:01 PM
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#3 (permalink)
| | Fire Worm
Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: South Texas
Posts: 166
Karma: 72
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I purchased a coralife 1/6 hp for my 72 gallon bow front... and love it.
Temp. stays constant at 78 degrees and only turns on for a short while to charge the temp. back down a few times a day.
I bought this to replace a fan placed in my canopy...
While this helped tremendously ... the downside to a fan blowing over the top imo is evaporative cooling... it sucked my 5 gallon drip jug dry in 48 hours. That was not acceptable... so I found a great deal online ... chiller was only 299.99 with 12 dollars shipping. Oceanic is no longer making that chiller... so you can still get a steal on it if you search hard enough.
Ryan
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72 gallon bow front, aqua c urchin protein skimmer, wet/dry filtration, 90lbs lr, 70lb sand, 2 clown fish, yellow-head goby, yellow tang, flame angel, blue hippo, six-line wrasse, carpet anemone, cleaner shrimp, 4 mj1200's with red sea wavemaker, current sundial t5 ho lighting 216w, coralife 1/6 hp chiller | |
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07-09-2008, 10:19 PM
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#4 (permalink)
| | Peppermint Shrimp
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 418
Karma: 175
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Just food for thought before you spend a lot of money on a chiller. Have you tried a fan blowing on the water? Some people use an actual clip on fan. I'm lucky enough that my 55 is in my living room where I have a ceiling fan (no, the tank is not directly under it either). I can have the fan on high and the tank won't go above 78 or 79 even if the surrounding air in the condo is 81. (Florida resident as well)
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55gal,216 watt Tek T5, 45#LR, 45#LS, 3 maxi-jet 900's on a natural wavemaker timer,phosban reactor, 5 gal fuge (built out of standard 10 gallon tank) with chaeto and feather caulerpa, sealife systems protein skimmer, wet/dry, 3 blue/green chromi, 1 skunk cleaner shrimp, 1 coral beauty,1 scopas tang, 2 false percs, 5 mexican turbo snails, assorted dwarf blue leg hermits, astrea snails, and nerite snails | |
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07-09-2008, 10:36 PM
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#5 (permalink)
| | Gnarly Old Codfish
Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Silverdale, Washington Age: 59
Posts: 4,777
  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mandarin11 Just food for thought before you spend a lot of money on a chiller. Have you tried a fan blowing on the water? Some people use an actual clip on fan. I'm lucky enough that my 55 is in my living room where I have a ceiling fan (no, the tank is not directly under it either). I can have the fan on high and the tank won't go above 78 or 79 even if the surrounding air in the condo is 81. (Florida resident as well) |
Probably way overkill. But I have seven fans that take off when temp hits 81.5 degrees...2 in sump, 5 up top.
On a very hot day, I additionally add a larger portable fan blowing down on water from above.
Does not take long for fans to cool down tank water to below 80 degrees...
All hooked up to my improvised thermostat. DIY Fan Thermostat (ugly, but works!)
Have AC for backup.
But here in PNW not needed very often.  DFS currently has chillers on sale...20% off (& of course, cheap shipping and no sales tax)
Let us know what you figure out & how well it works...  _________ AG "125," AquaC EV 180, 30 gal sump, "SCWD", 80 lbs LR, CoralSeaLife "Moonlite" Hood, PFO 250W HQI Mini-Pendant (SPS HQI 14000k bulb)
12 Gallon NanoCube - 24w stock PC 50/50 light "...nothing good ever happens fast in a reef tank, only bad things happen fast..."
- MIKE PALLETTA - (2008 Reef log) ("OmarD"/"Scott") | |
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07-09-2008, 11:28 PM
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#6 (permalink)
| | Banned
Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: rocklin
Posts: 907
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i just got a chiller, i would try fans b4 and see what works for you. | |
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07-10-2008, 02:19 PM
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#7 (permalink)
| | Astrea Snail
Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: SA,TX
Posts: 56
Karma: 8
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Chillers are way expensive. I just went through what you're asking (as in last week). I keep the temp in my house at 77deg and my tank would get up to 81.+ deg. After reading about all this stuff on this bbs, I went out and bought a 5" clip on fan from Target. I was stunned to see the next day the temp in the tank at 77.5deg. It's never been that low. I've half the glass lids off with the fan blowing on one side of the tank, clipped to my canopy. What's amazing is there's a glass brace across the middle of the tank (it's 5ft. long) and it's still able to cool the tank that much. I've a Coralife 48" pc 4x65w w/lunar light setup, therefore I've the 3 sets of lights on timers. I've the fan on the same timer with the 10000k 'daylight' lights so it's only on when the most heat intense lighting is on. With the tank running this way my temp is staying at 78deg.! I'm very happy about that! 
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110g. fish/inverts/sps | |
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07-10-2008, 07:13 PM
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#8 (permalink)
| | Flamingo Tongue
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 120
Karma: 176
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i have a pedestal fan blowing onto my tank plus the cooling fan in the fixture and i pretty much stay at 78-79 w/ac on we keep the ac at 78-80this seems to work ok i run 2/250 mh hqi w/2 96 actinics | |
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07-10-2008, 07:22 PM
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#9 (permalink)
| | Bikers are a dying breed!
Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Elizabethtown, IN Age: 40
Posts: 3,967
  
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If your room gets warm then the water will pick up that temperature fast. Blowing fans may help but now you will have high humidity in the house plus you had better have a ATO because you are going to loose water fast.
If you have the budget for it then a chiller is a nice piece of insurance to have. I run a 1/3hp TradeWinds and love the fact that I don't have to worry about temp and blowing fans all over the place. Fans clipped everywhere looks like some red neck set it up.  _________ Scott 265g (Peninsula)
3x400w MH's, 4x95w Actinics, AAT Lunar Lights, OM 4-way CL, PM Bullet 3 Skimmer, DelZone Eclipse 1 O3 Generator, WavySea Plus for return, AAT Kalk Reactor, KNOP Ca Reactor w/PM Second Chamber, TradeWinds Chiller, ACIII Controller, Oceanus ATO, PM PO4 Reactor, 75g Sump, 30g Fuge Born March 5, 2007 Parameters My 265 Gal. Tank Thread   | |
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07-10-2008, 07:35 PM
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#10 (permalink)
| | 3reef Sponsor
Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Va/Ct
Posts: 4,358
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I keep my house 72 to 73 for me damn a fish LOL but with me being happy at these temps the little fan does the job just fine. tank hits 78 fan kicks on tank falls to 77.3 fan turns off _________ Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible (Doug Larson) | |
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