Humidity higher after adding 210 gallon aquarium

[Texas Dennis]

Live in North Texas where humidity has been around 50% during the summer months. After adding. 210 gallon reef tank this winter, we are keeping the house 4 degrees cooler and humidity is over 60%. A few details:

• I do not have any covers on the aquarium (just a canopy that covers 50% of the top to hold the lights)
• My water temp is 77-78 degrees
• The house is 3,000 SQ ft
• I am using about a gallon a day in top off water

Any thoughts? I have not added glass to the top of the tank as I hate to have it reduce the light pass through (and it is somewhat a hassle for feeding and such).

 

[saintsreturn]

When i moved from Florida to North Texas, i noticed more evap taking place here than back home. After that, I upgraded my 29 to a 75 and averaged 5g every 3-5 days with the house swinging from 75-68.

When i upgraded to my 110g tank with canopy, i average 5g every 2-3 days. house is 2600, temp is 78 in tank, temp is 75-70 in house. If you add cooling fans you will have more evap. Most likely, with the larger system, you have more surface agitation with a larger skimmer and better power heads. These will aid in your evap.

 

[Jon Fishman]

Just get a dehumidifier installed into your HVAC system of your home

 

[GabeM]

Your AC system should be condensing a lot of the humidity - how much RO are you going through every day?

 

[Texas Dennis]

About 1 gallon per day.

 

[Robert_ellis]

1g a day isnt bad. I have a 135 rimless and use 10g a week minimum.

 

[GabeM]

I lose 5 gallons a week in my 50g rimless with a lowish RH in the NE (outside is 20-30%RH)

It seems that you are not removing humidity properly for some reason, the air is rather saturated and you are not seeing much evaporation because of this. I would look into your HVAC systems if you do not want to cover the tank.

 

[Xanthurum]

You people are funny! Try living in AZ where having about 400 gallons of water in your home and you still stay below 20% humidity LOL. Seriously though I go thru 20 gallons a week or more in evap alone.

 

[W1ngz]

I see a bunch of guesses, but I'm really not clear on the question you're asking. Is it that you don't understand why your humidity is higher? Or that you don't know how to lower it?

 

[Texas Dennis]

I see a bunch of guesses, but I'm really not clear on the question you're asking. Is it that you don't understand why your humidity is higher? Or that you don't know how to lower it?

Guess I was not clear. I am trying to understand if the aquarium is the culprit and what others may have done to fix it.

 

[sawdonkey]

About 1 gallon per day.

Wow! My 210 evaporates 20-25 gallons a week, a little less in the summer.

I don’t think a gallon a day is going to do much to your house humidity.

 

[RobW]

Yeah, I live in Florida and keep my house at 72-73 and when my 150 was setup I was evaporating 4-5 gallons per day. I did also have 2 250w metal halides with 4 t5's. I kept the surface very agitated, had a skimmer running nonstop, and had fans blowing in one end of the canopy and sucking out the other end.

 

[Mjrenz]

It's very likely that your tank is the culprit unless you have another source of humidity in the house like a leaking pipe, wet crawlspace, etc. When your air conditioner cools the air it is also removing humidity but if it's oversized or has other issues like a dirty coil, dirty filter, etc it cannot remove the humidity like it should. Also if you have a mild day the ac will only run as long as it needs to cool the air and won't be removing humidity when it's off. A dehumidifier would be your best method of controlling the humidity, you should try to keep the level at 50 to 55% in the house

 

[Mjrenz]

Just one other thing to add, cooler air isn't able to hold as much moisture as warmer air so it becomes saturated quicker. For example: if you cool 80 degree air at 50%rh down to 70 degrees without adding or removing any moisture then the relative humidity of that 70 degree air becomes 70%.

 

[Texas Dennis]

Wow! My 210 evaporates 20-25 gallons a week, a little less in the summer.

I don’t think a gallon a day is going to do much to your house humidity.

Must have hot lights? The amount evaporating seems crazy!

 

[W1ngz]

Like someone else mentioned above, cooler air will raise the humidity assuming everything else is a constant. Assuming 50% outside humidity, and cooling inside that's likely responsible for a part of it. I wouldn't know the specific numbers. Having 210 gallons of water that is heated above room temp is going to add on top of that. A bump of 10% higher than outside humidity isn't all that shocking. Check with your HVAC contractor about adding a dehumidifier. Montreal is almost always above 50% humidity, and you'd be surprised at what a dehumidifier alone can do on warm days without also needing to kick in the AC.

 

[Mariette]

Guess I was not clear. I am trying to understand if the aquarium is the culprit and what others may have done to fix it.

Aquarium is a culprit. Adding a large body of water which evaporates does contribute to the increase of humidity in the home. If it’s too humid, consider placing a dehumidifier in the room.

 

[litenyaup]

I would say yes the humidity is from the tank. If the humidity in the house gets to be too high and starts to cause problems I would recommend getting a thermostat for your a/c unit that will read and run based on a set humidity %. If that doesn’t work only other thing would be to get a dehumidifier to remove the excess moisture.

 

[W1ngz]

It's entirely possible that the tank hasn't contributed significantly to the humidity, it's just created an awareness.

The tank is new. Paying attention to or looking for a more in depth understanding of the indoor humidity may also be new because of the tank, and have nothing at all to do with the humidity itself.

Using this calculator: https://www.lenntech.com/calculators/humidity/relative-humidity.htm

An outdoor relative humidity of 50% at 25C/78F translates to an indoor relative humidity of 64.2% at room a temperature 21C/70F.

 

[Highgrade]

You people are funny! Try living in AZ where having about 400 gallons of water in your home and you still stay below 20% humidity LOL. Seriously though I go thru 20 gallons a week or more in evap alone.

+1 , I have the same issue in the summer and in the winter it is worse due to the outside temp- colder temps at higher altitude with dryer air.