Chiller vs. Fans

[Nathaniellund17]

Hello All,
Wanted to see what experience everyone had with using chillers. With summer coming up, I'm trying to decide if a chiller is worth the investment. I have my sump in my basement, so I have a good amount of space. I've been using two desk fans to cool the water, which seems to work. I'm able to keep my temp between 78.2 and 78.7 degrees in the summer. My main concern is that with the sump in the basement, it causes the basement to get pretty humid. I have a dehumidifier that helps - but it effectively runs non-stop. I'm also worried about any lasting damage I could do with a humid basement. I'm thinking a chiller would reduce the amount of evaporation / humidity in the basement.

Also trying to figure out what chiller to get if I were to get a chiller. It seems JBJ Chillers are some of the most popular chillers out in the market. When using the JBJ calculator (https://www.jbjaquarium.com/chiller-calculator/), I'm not sure if I'm inputting the right detail. I'm trying to pull the wattage from each equipment home page. Here's what I've got:

Display - 180 gallons
Sump - 60 gallons
Current tank temp - 78.7 degrees
Desired tank temp - 78.2 degrees
Heat from lighting - 430 watts (2 - XR30 Radeon Lights)
Heat from return pump - 250 watts (Panworld NH-250PS)
Heat from power heads - 120 watts (4 - MP40 Ecotech Powerheads)

These inputs are telling to get the:

JBJ Arctica Titanium Chiller DBM-250 1/3HP​

This almost seems like overkill to me, but would certainly welcome any thoughts.

 

[blaxsun]

I ran my dehumidifier almost non-stop in the winter as well to keep levels around 30%. When it wasn't running they were closer to around 40%. A chiller might help a bit - but the dehumidifer is probably going to work best.

 

[Nathaniellund17]

Thanks for the response. With my dehumidifier on I'm getting levels of 50-60% in the summer. I'm thinking I'm going to have to use the dehumidifier no matter what. Maybe I need to get another dehumidifier. That's certainly a lot cheaper than a chiller. But I'm thinking the high humidity is really coming from the fans. In the winter, I'm getting 35-45% humidity - which is still high, but not 50-60%.

I guess one other problem with the dehumidifier is that the dehumidifier is probably warming the sump, causing the fans to come on more, resulting in more humidity... a never ending cycle.