Chiller or fans?

[Veetz89]

I'm preparing for the summer in NYC this year. Last summer, temps reached 86 degrees in my home without the a/c on. With it on I wasnt able to bring the temperature lower than 78/79 in the tank. During the day without the a/c on my tanks thermostat said it reached as high as 84. I'm pretty sure ambient air was much lower as I was quite comfortable in my home. This year I installed a t5 hybrid setup so I'm definitely causing more heat on the water.

Is it possible to use fans to bring the temp down that much? Going from 85ish to 78 seems like a steep challenge. Chillers are super expensive and I'm trying to source one now but those jbj 1/4 hp seem ridiculous for the price.

Any tips on what I can do?

 

[DLHDesign]

I wouldn't think that a fan would be able to reduce the temp that much - I only ever saw a degree or two at best when I had fans all over my tank. You could aim the fans at the lights to help cool them off, but that also has limited impact on the tank temp.

One thing I found to help a bit was to shut down some equipment during the day. I set my skimmer to shut off during the heat of the day, for example. At one point I even turned off the T5's for an hour or two in the afternoon (leaving my LED's on). None of that actually dropped my temps enough, however, so I ended up going with a chiller. It was expensive to buy and is easily the piece of equipment that draws the most power when on, but it also was the only thing I found that was effective enough to give me control of my tank temperature...

 

[ca1ore]

It also depends a LOT on ambient humidity. In a high humidity environment, fans hardly work at all.