Garage tanks in a Warm Climate - who has them?

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I bought a house in south Florida a few months back that has these; I’m amazed at how cool it keeps the whole attic (storage areas are a premium). I haven’t tried to utilize it for the garage yet....I’m in planning stage for 300g tank and also looking at utilizing garage, as well as attic for water transfer.

I have 40 gallon total in a metal container 1/4 hp & 1/5hp chillers, tank size 24 gallons, pilot plant setup trying to aquaculture NPS softies. 97% automated, diy, it has 2500cfm? Attic fan, 110v. Also solar attic fan. This year first summer. We'll see. Water temp 71°. I go there every 3 days out in boonies. Called "Backwoods Lab" instead of moonshine, we're trying to aquaculture NPS softies.

 

[mrpizzaface]

Tradewinds chiller.

 

[Peace River]

It seems that you are going to get to your goal by gaining a few degrees each from several options (e.g., chillers, fans, etc.). Have you evaluated your house AC system? If it is an oversized unit, you may consider adding a vent from the house AC system into the garage (without a return). This won't cool your garage to the level as the main living area, but it will be one more way to help in the overall cooling. Good luck!

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Like all garages it will get very hot

 

[Coronus]

You can check out my build thread, I have moved the tank a couple times so you can see how I set it up each time.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/livinlocal’s-living-ocean.351562/

For a chiller recommendation, I don't really have a brand to reccomend, but I would recommend to get one that is rated for twice the amount of water that you are actually going to be using. I use a ecoplus chiller that works amazing. If you get a chiller that's rated for 200 gallons of water, and you have 200 gallons of water, the chiller is going to be working really hard because it will be struggling to keep up with the warm climate in your garage. My garage doors are insulated, and my garage still gets to about 120ﾟ in the summer. Btw I live in San Diego. If its 90 outside, my garage is over 110. If its 100 outside,my garage us around 120 or so. I have always thought about putting in an air conditioner in my garage, but with the heat output from the chiller, it's almost a waste of electricity because it wouldn't keep up with the heat, and the garage being ventilated, the cold air would just get sucked out. I also run my lights at night from 10pm-9am to help conoinsate the heat.


One thing I am thinking about doing now comment is actually putting the chiller outside of my garage so it doesn't push the hot air back into my garage. This would help keep it cool so that when I'm in the garage comment I can run a airconditioner and it wouldn't have to compete with that heat from the chiller. But I haven't done this yet because it's a lot of work lol

If you ran a split Ac in the garage and insulated the ceiling over the garage, you probably would not need a chiller. My neighbor across the street did this and rents out his garage and his garage holds temps at 74 degrees. I live in Fl. Unless you run metal halide

 

[User1]

If you haven't done so already do a search on o2manyfish. He is a really nice guy that lives in Southern California and has a full system outside that compliments his 400 or so gallon inside. I think his sump is also outside. He handles the weather just fine not to mention rain and fires that went down the last couple years. It is a really beautiful system that he has and it is amazing it handles the outside just fine.

I know you mentioned garage but depending on your location it may be possible to do something similar or possibly a green house. I'm actually up in Northern California and considering a green house in my backyard to grow some vegetables and was thinking of creating a small frag tank out there using the natural sunlight. Pipe dream now due to my busy work schedule but it sure sounds nice.

 

[DogsRule]

If you add up the cost of a window A/C unit, attic fans & a chiller, then you could probably install a DIY mini split AC system for about the same cost. I purchased a 1 ton mini split system for our bedroom (Central Florida & bedroom is approx. 500 sq ft) from our local home improvement store. The system comes pre-charged & runs off 120v power. If you're going to insulate the garage doors, then this type of system could probably keep the entire garage & frag tanks comfortable while being very efficient & almost silent. HTH

 

[Subsea]

Very interesting. I would love to hear how this works exactly, but won't ask you to fully explain, unless you would like to In either case I am absolutely open to this option. I amentalam glad you gave the tip of not using a dehumidifier, what you said above does make sense.

I shut down the 10K gallon greenhouse mariculture when my electric bill hit $1000. My lesson learned was to choose hardy livestock that was able to thrive under fluctuating parameters. To that end, I now grow utilitarian & ornamental macro with pods and sell to the hobby market as live food/refugium starter kits thru a LFS. Some of that is on the thread.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/mariculture-in-austin.426805/

For a different purpose, I just did set up a 55G glass tank coupled to a 150G Rubbermaid tub buried in the ground. We had to chip away limestone shelf to dig deeper than 12”. For the last foot, the dirt removed was used to raise the ground level and completely bury tank. This project is only 3 days old and the caliche soil is a mess to walk on. I will remove the sloped ground and surround tub with a brick retaining wall to hold 1’ of soil as insulation around tub to get coverage on last 6” of tub. Rubbermaid tub is 24” deep.

As you can see from pictures, I have several projects in the works.

 

[FishyDP]

Wow, thank you for all of the suggestions, this is giving me many options to think about. Nobody has said that this is impossible, or a bad idea, so I do feel pretty good about continuing the build.

I live in an HOA community, that will not allow me to run a mini-split. I cannot modify the appearance of the exterior of the house, meaning that I cannot put an exhaust unit outside. My house is actually a 2 floor townhome, and there is a bedroom above the garage. There is pink standard insulation in the ceiling of the garage, I know from drilling holes in the ceiling, the pink insulation got stuck to the drill bit. The room above the garage gets much warmer than the rest of the house, so I am hoping that cooling the garage will help with this issue as well. I am going to look into the solar fans, I am unsure of the use of one with a room above the garage though?..if I lived on a property with more land, I would love to build a greenhouse coral farm. If I ever move this will be a consideration for sure, but for now I will be in my garage. Have to decide on what cooling options to go with.

 

[Subsea]

Wow, thank you for all of the suggestions, this is giving me many options to think about. Nobody has said that this is impossible, or a bad idea, so I do feel pretty good about continuing the build.

I live in an HOA community, that will not allow me to run a mini-split. I cannot modify the appearance of the exterior of the house, meaning that I cannot put an exhaust unit outside. My house is actually a 2 floor townhome, and there is a bedroom above the garage. There is pink standard insulation in the ceiling of the garage, I know from drilling holes in the ceiling, the pink insulation got stuck to the drill bit. The room above the garage gets much warmer than the rest of the house, so I am hoping that cooling the garage will help with this issue as well. I am going to look into the solar fans, I am unsure of the use of one with a room above the garage though?..if I lived on a property with more land, I would love to build a greenhouse coral farm. If I ever move this will be a consideration for sure, but for now I will be in my garage. Have to decide on what cooling options to go with.

Does the HOA restrict what you put in the ground, like a swimming pool. If they allow in ground swimming pools, then bury a 500G septic tank in the ground with all pipes underground. This volume will dampen temperature swings and the buried tank will allow geothermal heat exchange.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

If you have gable vents in attic, then a 120v attic fan is possible

If not, sounds like garage has drywall ceiling and sides, then go with exhaust fan (get adjustable speeds if you do) on vent in garage, can't go wrong. Will help so chiller come on less, by removing heat

 

[Alexreefer]

@MimicOcto8 has a 1000+ gal in his garage in Arizona I believe. Here is a link and you can ask him any questions.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/aarons-1-000-gallon-reef-build.503839/

 

[FishyDP]

Does the HOA restrict what you put in the ground, like a swimming pool. If they allow in ground swimming pools, then bury a 500G septic tank in the ground with all pipes underground. This volume will dampen temperature swings and the buried tank will allow geothermal heat exchange.

Unfortunately I cannot dig the ground up, HOA wont allow it.. I have read some threads that recommended running pipes underground as the temp is cooler, sounds like the same idea with the underground tank. This is a great idea. I am doing some more research about evaporative cooling, trying to understand how I could do this in a garage.

 

[lion king]

Rooms in my house get pretty hot during the day, I live in Vegas, I can easily get a 7 degree drop from ambient temp with the use of fans. One of your biggest obstacles will be humidity, when the humidity is high, fans are not as effective. Chillers are just as expensive as an ac to run, but does not provide you any comfort in the environment. Unless the chiller is mounted outside or in another area, also adds more heat to the environment. For me, I would lower the overall room temp and dehumidify the room, then bring down the tanks further with the use of fans. If you can't mount anything outside, research a room ac where all you will have to do is cut a hole to vent, find one with good dehumidifying abilities. The fans can be connected to a temp controller to keep the tank temp stable.

 

[FishyDP]

Rooms in my house get pretty hot during the day, I live in Vegas, I can easily get a 7 degree drop from ambient temp with the use of fans. One of your biggest obstacles will be humidity, when the humidity is high, fans are not as effective. Chillers are just as expensive as an ac to run, but does not provide you any comfort in the environment. Unless the chiller is mounted outside or in another area, also adds more heat to the environment. For me, I would lower the overall room temp and dehumidify the room, then bring down the tanks further with the use of fans. If you can't mount anything outside, research a room ac where all you will have to do is cut a hole to vent, find one with good dehumidifying abilities. The fans can be connected to a temp controller to keep the tank temp stable.

I definitely like the idea of running some fans over my tanks for increased/supplement cooling. I will add this to my overall plan. I have read in a couple threads, including this one, that the ac will help dehumidify, but a dehumidifier is not a great idea in my application as it can increase the air temperature, working against the ac. My biggest obstacle now is figuring out how to keep the humidity down without a dehumidifier. I am hoping that ac will accomplish this. Right now the plan is: insulation on garage doors, portable ac vented out of a window. I will monitor the temp and humidity. I will then set up some temporary saltwater holding containers in the garage with powerheads and fans, and see the difference in temperature and humidity. A chiller would be the next step if all goes well with temp and humidity. The chiller will be inside the garage due to hoa restrictions, but will be enclosed and vented out of a window to reduce heat produced by the chiller. I will see how it goes.

Oh, someone also mentioned if I have an oversized central ac I could tap into my HVAC and blow cool air into the garage as well. I really like this idea. Why not just cut a small hole in my wall that separates garage from house and install a small fan to blow cold air into the garage from the house?

 

[FishyDP]

If you have gable vents in attic, then a 120v attic fan is possible

If not, sounds like garage has drywall ceiling and sides, then go with exhaust fan (get adjustable speeds if you do) on vent in garage, can't go wrong. Will help so chiller come on less, by removing heat

Attic is on 3rd floor, garage on first floor. I wonder if there is any benefit of adding something like this directly to garage or attic?

 

[lion king]

An ac is actually designed to dehumidify, the ac will not cool near as well in high humidity. That's what the condensate line is all about, in an ac system this works together. I wouldn't add an additional dehumidifier, the reason you think this increases room temp, is because the unit expels the hot air inside the room. That's why whatever you choose, the hot air expelled by the system needs to be vented outside. This is why I would only use a chiller outside or in an area where you wouldn't be concerned with hot air being expelled.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Attic is on 3rd floor, garage on first floor. I wonder if there is any benefit of adding something like this directly to garage or attic?

Your garage may have some type of vent if yes, small attic fan ideal. Attic fan on third floor good for Central ac

 

[Dan Snyder]

I run 2 tanks in my garage also in south FL, just have chillers on them in the garage, (QT tanks) yes it makes it hot in the summer, but some days I crack the garage a couple feet and never had a problem!

 

[Bob Weigant]

I guess living in SF Bay Area is pretty good for my garage tanks. I have 3 , 225 , 200 , 180 and only about 3-4 weeks a year does the garage get pretty warm. I just open the back door and crack the garage door and crank the fan..