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?

 

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.

 

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

 

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...


8)

 

i just got a chiller, i would try fans b4 and see what works for you.

 

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!

 

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

 

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.

 

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