Help! Aquarium water too hot

[Zach W]

I built my own unit similar to the CSXC-1 out of parts I had lying around, for my 16G. My house was peaking up to around 84-86F during our summer. It did keep up for me. The cooler and my controller for the heater, I could keep the tank between 25.5 and 26 deg c (78-79F).

Good to know! I was told chillers could significantly raise the temp of my room if I use them, did you experience this at all?

 

[Brew12]

The highest I can find is 8 amps on the Ranco units at 220V. You can check the AC unit and look to see how much current it draws. If it is 8 amps or less, a Ranco could be an easy solution.
Otherwise, we need something a little more complex.

 

[Caswal]

Good to know! I was told chillers could significantly raise the temp of my room if I use them, did you experience this at all?

They are not a heat pump style chiller like the Haileas. So Instead of getting around 1 Watt of heat moved per Watt spent. So a 250W Chiller is going to dump almost 500W of heat into the room (250W from the unit doing work, and 250W of heat extracted from the aquarium). The CSXC-1 is a Peltier Electric Cooler which is much less efficient, spending closer to 1W of heat moved per 10W of heat spent. So a 100W Unit, will pump out 110W of heat into the room.

So the CSXC-1'chiller', and the one I built are in the realm of 120-150W, and that is about the added heat you would expect from it. So the same as 1-2 Incandescent light bulbs.

 

[Fish4udog]

Zach not with that small of a unit it wont go up that much I ran a 1/3 hp chiller big difference

 

[vetteguy53081]

A/C or dehumidifier.
Also a quick trick............................... Take 4 med/lg ziplock bags and fill with water. Place them in Freezer. When frozen, place two in tank and let float. It will gradually bring down temperature. When they have melted to liquid, rinse, place in freezer and put the two other frozen ones in tank til you reach desired temperature. If you have room- make 6 - 8 bags !!

 

[Sonor]

Zach, don't forget to consider the humidity of your local area. Cooling fans lose there cooling ability the higher the humidity. When the inside humidity at my house gets over about 30-35 per cent my cooling fans have more difficulty keeping my temps under control, and I also run my a/c set at 77 degrees F. This is on a 200 gallon system. when i was running a 28 gallon system in the same room, I had to use a chiller to keep tank temps stable, temp fluctuations on the 28 gallon with chiller were kept at 1 to 2 degrees, while on the 200 gallons system and fans only 1 degree fluctuations, but again with the house a/c on. I live in Las Vegas so most humidity is low, you have heard it before, it's a dry heat. Both tanks had a target temp of 76 degrees F, and the fans are on a controller.

 

[robert teseo]

after years of fighting high temps in the summer, and looking at the $$$ I have in the tank, I broke down and bought a chiller, heater combo.[teco]. best thing I have done in the hobby. no more worries.the tamp stays nailed with in 2 deg

 

[Zach W]

after years of fighting high temps in the summer, and looking at the $$$ I have in the tank, I broke down and bought a chiller, heater combo.[teco]. best thing I have done in the hobby. no more worries.the tamp stays nailed with in 2 deg

How big is your tank? That sounds like a solid option. Can you give me the model or other models that could work?

 

[NewbieReefer11]

Hey dude, I live in Australia and for a few days it got into the high 40's (I dont use inferior measurements [emoji23]) I only have a 10 dollar usb desk fan hooked up to a temp controller on my 400 litre reef. The tank stayed at 26 - 27 celcius the whole time. You dont need some fancy chiller that cost like 400 dollars. You dont really need a controller either if you make sure to take the fan off on cooler days.
Hope this helps
Regard NewbieReefer11

 

[kirstyflash]

We too are in Australia and summer days can be mid 40’s (113f) & winter nights down below 0 (32f)
We are in a house with a/c in summer and ducted heating plus wood fire for winter. Our tank is a 10g and we run a chiller that keeps it at 26+/-1 (78-79f). Hope you get it under control

 

[Captain Quint]

Zach, it is cool (no pun intended) to read that you want your future critters alive and comfortable. No matter what any of us suggest it is ultimately a personal decision to run AC or utilize a chiller. I actually have the opposite problem. It's ~100+ degrees where I live, but my choice is to keep the inside temp of my home at 67 to 68 degrees year round forcing me to use heaters in tanks year round. haha

 

[ZoWhat]

POOR MAN's CHILLER:

Go to grocery store and get a box of gallon freezer ZipLoc bags

Fill the freezer bags with topoff water and FREEZE them in your freezer. Solid block of ice that are sealed in the ZipLoc

Put one freezer bag in your sump to cool off water. Hopefully the freezer bag will NOT leak, but if it does its just topoff water, so big deal.

Keep rotating freezer bags in and out.

HTH

 

[Oldsalt01]

Freeze a couple of drinking water bottles and put one in the sump or tank and monitor the tank temps. Simple fix and no worries about leaks.

 

[madweazl]

Is this not a thermostat? The fan will remain on but the a/c will cycle. The fan takes little power to operate.