Adding fans to canopy

[totion]

In my canopy I am running 3 65 watt power compacts. My tank is at 86 degrees currently. I cut the lights, put a box fan blowing on my sump, and added ice packs to my sump.

I'm going to get a couple of computer case fans for my canopy, one on each side, one push and one pull.

How can I power these? I read I could use a cell phone charger.

Anyone else have a setup like this and can chime in?

 

[justgotwet]

I used a old cell phone charger that was putting out 12 volts.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Go to Radio Shack and buy any old 12v plug in for any phone or gadget. Peel away the end wiring, that would connect to the device. One wire will have a marking on it, thats your positive lead, the other is your negative. Wire that to your fans, and plug em in.

 

[totion]

Thank you. It's 85 in my house at 8:30 pm I'm thinking about breaking down and buying a Window ac.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Yuk. I hear ya

 

[totion]

It's been decided. I'm getting an air conditioner on Thursday. I work from 10 pm to 6 am when it's nice and cool in the house. I fall asleep when it's cool and wake up by 11 or 12 soaked in sweat and miserable. It's not even august yet! 4-5 restless hours of sleep are getting on me. I still have about 5 hours of work left and am dozing off.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Now that sucks right there. Hope ya get the rest ya need with the AC.

 

[twelvefive]

It's been decided. I'm getting an air conditioner on Thursday. I work from 10 pm to 6 am when it's nice and cool in the house. I fall asleep when it's cool and wake up by 11 or 12 soaked in sweat and miserable. It's not even august yet! 4-5 restless hours of sleep are getting on me. I still have about 5 hours of work left and am dozing off.

How do you not own an AC unit in 2013?

 

[AZDesertRat]

Using fans in a push/pull configuration is a waste of money and power. The second fan only moves what the first fan feeds it so does nothing to contribute to the cooling.

You are far better off to use two fans, one in each end, both blowing cooler, dryer air in and provide equal sized holes either in the roof of the canopy above the light reflectors or fixtures or as high up in back as possible and towards the center since hot air rises. You not only get the cooling effect of the fans but natural convection also so even when the fans are not running you can feel warm air escaping out the top.

I have done many threads on the construction of my canopy, lighting and fans on several of the reef forums if you search my username I am sure some will pop up. I tried every combination imagineable and settled on the above. I tried AC fans, DC fans, pushing in, pulling out, one in one out, constant speed, variable speed, large fans, small fans, slow fans, high speed fans, sump fans, canopy fans, both sump and canopy etc.

I found two 120mm Vantec Stealth fans, both blowing in to my totally enclosed canopy with two 4" holes in the top center of the canopy roof and powered by Harbor Freight DC variable voltage power supplies lowered my tank 3-5 degrees on low speed. That was with 2x250w MH and 2x140w VHO, 8-10 hrs a day and in Phoenix in a house with a digital setback thermostat on the AC so it was warm during the day while we were at work. I sold my 1/4HP chiller and never regretted it.

 

[totion]

I know lots of people who don't own ac units in 2013 lol

Az, thank you. I'll look for a build thread. I built a new stand and was waiting to build a new canopy after I upgrade to leds. For now I'll add two fans blowing in and cut some holes in the canopy with my Drexel multimax.

The back of my canopy is open, but there is maybe an inch of clearance between the top of the tank and the reflectors which doesn't allow much heat to escape.

 

[twelvefive]

I know lots of people who don't own ac units in 2013 lol

Az, thank you. I'll look for a build thread. I built a new stand and was waiting to build a new canopy after I upgrade to leds. For now I'll add two fans blowing in and cut some holes in the canopy with my Drexel multimax.

The back of my canopy is open, but there is maybe an inch of clearance between the top of the tank and the reflectors which doesn't allow much heat to escape.

It would be miserable trying to survive an Alabama summer with AC, maybe West Virginia is more mild.

 

[totion]

it has been until now. box fans used to work fine, but with the reef running in my room i worry about the temp of it. i just grabbed my brothers window ac to use for the night until i get paid tomorrow morning and can go grab my own.

this brought my temp from off the charts to 86 in a matter of 30 minutes. now the ac is running and im hoping to at least get my actinics running soon.

 

[Reefing Madness]

My lil CPU fans running across the top of my water, in which I run Halides, keeps my water at 79.

 

[totion]

Yeah I am going to add fans to the canopy, but with temp inside climbing to 87+ degrees during the day I don't think it will work as well. I think the combo of an ac unit and fans will do the trick. As of now the temp is down to 78 and I'm going to remove the fans in the picture and put my canopy back on. I'm going to run just the actinics for now.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Heres a pic of the fans on my canopy, you can see them just under the Halides.

 

[totion]

thanks for the pic. i'm thinking about going with azdesertsrats design after googling pics of his canopy. one fan on each side with holes drilled in the top. i'm going to build an open top canopy and stain it to match my stand when i upgrade to leds, for now i'm just using the canopy i had painted black to match my old stand. its split in half with a piano hinge so that i can open in and get into the tank. i'll put on fan in the back on the left side and one fan in the front on the right side with a hole drilled in each side on top above the reflectors. those reflectors get so hot they burn pretty badly when touched.