Why does my tank water heat up so much?

[Alan Griesemer]

Hi, i recently inherited a 65 gallon saltwater setup. This set up included a corallife chiller. I have had roommates and friends that have had saltwater tanks in the past and none of them had a chiller so i was kinda put off this part.

My problem is that the tank and chiller are in my living room and chiller is extremely LOUD. I would want to remove it but my tank water is constantly reaching 80 degrees which is what the chiller is set to. I'm nervous to remove the chiller because if the water is heating up to 80 degrees will it keep going higher and eventually kill my fish?

If i cannot remove it form the setup can someone recommend a quieter one that i can swap out for this one? In addition can someone also recommended quieter pumps that go in the bottom water bin?

 

[sc50964]

Most fish can endure temps up to 82 degrees as long as there is enough oxygen in the water and Ammonia is at 0.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

whats in your system, ie return pump lights and powerheads?
I would immediately suspect the return pump as the heater, esp if its flow is choked or has a lot of head.

 

[reefwiser]

Yes what is the complete setup. Area's where heat can come from are Lighting Metal halide and t5 can cause heat issues if not ventilated properly.
Pump's internal or external pumps for water movement and return to the tank from the sump. Calibration of the temperature probe for the chiller.

 

[120reefkeeper]

I agree, usually when you have a high heat issue its coming from somewhere.

Faulty heater? Lights? Pump with excess head pressure? Pump with excessive buildup?

Start by checking equipment.

I even had a bad chiller once that wasn't cooling anything it was actually heating the water more..... Something went wrong with it and it was the culprit. Also heaters are notorious! Either defective or the internal thermostat can be off by several degrees.

Hope this helps.

 

[Alan Griesemer]

thanks for all the reply's, im currently at work but can give a full list of the system tonight when i get home. The other issue, that i didnt even list out, was that the chiller also produces a lot of heat in the air. Nothing to do with the tank water but last summer i would come home and it would be in the mid 80's in my living room because of the heat blowing out the back of the chiller unit. either way i need to figure out how to keep the water cool or find a new chiller that is not loud and hot. Its making me not even want to hnag out in that room any more...

 

[Browner20]

Do you have an auto top-off (ATO) for your setup? I have a 60 gal as well with halides, T5s, large external return pump, large internal skimmer pump, and the ballasts for the halides right next to my sump. All produce a tremendous amount of heat and easily keeps my tank 8-10 degrees higher than it normally should - I am not sure why I have a heater but probably kicks in at night when most of the heat producers are off. Any ways, my tank and hood are connected behind the tank and the hood has two long vents on top. I have two computer fans (Radioshack, $30each) in my hood blowing across the halides and two 12" square fans (Walmart $10each) blowing directly on to the surface of the water in the sump. All of the air vents up and out of the hood and keeps the tank at a very steady 79-80 degrees. Best thing about it is the fans are cheap and accessible so if any of them fail I just go a mile down the road and pick up a replacement at any time.

I thought I needed a chiller for the longest time but did not want all of the negatives that you mentioned. I find the fans work better than a chiller in a lot of cases because the chiller still emits so much ambient heat that unless you have the chiller mounted in another room you are almost defeating the purpose. HOWEVER - big disclaimer on my suggestion *** the fans are cooling the tank water via evaporation, a LOT of evaporation! If you go to work one day and the sump level is fine you might come home to a tank full of microbubbles from the pump working with very little water or worse a pump burnt to crisp from no water. My style of cooling requires a robust ATO system - robust does not mean expensive as mine consists of a couple rubbermaid containers hooked up to my RO system with float valves in the garage and a 1/4" line drilled through the wall along the baseboard to a float valve in the sump. Another disclaimer, I also installed some leak detectors to shut off in case a float valve gets stuck.

If you can verify your chiller is in fact operational - throw that thing on Craigslist for hundred, maybe a couple hundred and bam! - new ATO if you don't already have one!

 

[pirate2876]

Is the chiller fed from the return pump or, is there a separate pump just for that? What size tubing is the return plumbed with?

 

[Alan Griesemer]

i think it feeds from the return pump in the water in the bin underneath the tank in the cabinet. I will take some pics tonight too.

 

[Alan Griesemer]

Here are the photos of my tank and the chiller with where the hoses run to.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

I would turn stuff off one by one to see which is the culprit.

 

[Alan Griesemer]

Since im new to fish tanks i dont know what is safe to remove and what is not? also what is the white piece of PVC for that pulls the water to the chiller?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Yup. I agree with Renee.
Not sure what your room ambient temp is. But my house generally runs 75ish an I only just barely need a heater.

Since im new to fish tanks i dont know what is safe to remove and what is not? also what is the white piece of PVC for that pulls the water to the chiller?

I believe that is a huge oversize UV sterilizer.

You probably want to research your parts and compare them to common reeftank setups.
Rightnow you have a canister filter that has a pump(heat source), I assume a return pump(heat source), UV sterilizer(heat) and chiller possibly not serviced point of sale adding heat and driving the room temp up.
What kind of lights are in the hood?(major heat) I assume T5 fluorescent tubes. And likely an un vented hood.

Is there also a return pump pumping fro the sump to the tank? I dont see it.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

I'm not sure which white piece you're speaking of. Is it in the pictures above? Are you speaking of the thing that has Aqua written on it? If so, that's probably a UV filter by the shape of it.

Have you taken apart and cleaned the pump? Do you know what temp the prior person kept the tank at? Turn off the UV too and see what that does.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

You can turn off the UV, the chiller, the canister. leave the heater on(check the temp setting).
Leave the return pump on.

Btw, yours is not a common set up. And it appears you could use some in tank powerheads for flow, corals or not.

 

[NeptuneGarden]

mount your return pump externally if possible. All the heat from the pump is going into the water.

 

[120reefkeeper]

I noticed one issue right away. Your chiller is right next to the stand and it appears to be venting the hot air right around the back of the stand. In a way your recycling the heat back to your sump.

 

[Browner20]

I noticed one issue right away. Your chiller is right next to the stand and it appears to be venting the hot air right around the back of the stand. In a way your recycling the heat back to your sump.

I second this - Your return pump is pushing water through the chiller, then to the UV Sterilzer (the PVC thing) and then back to the tank. It is hard to tell from the picture, but unless that is a really large mag drive or eheim pump it is probably not strong enough to push the water through all of those items and tubing then back to the tank with an appreciable volume. AKA the water chilled is only trickling back into the tank and in the meantime is reheated by all the devices in question.

You can turn off the UV, the chiller, the canister. leave the heater on(check the temp setting).
Leave the return pump on.

Btw, yours is not a common set up. And it appears you could use some in tank powerheads for flow, corals or not.

I would do the same thing, my opinion would be to ditch the canister filter and chiller, mount the UV sterilizer above the return pump to make those tubing runs shorter and see if that solves some of the problem. This would increase your flow in the display but I would still add one large or a couple small power heads. Hood is too small for MH so guessing there are some sort of fluorescents in there so if you could vent them it would help. The additional flow through the sump will add some evaporation and possibly solve your heat problem. You have a huge reaction chamber where the tank flows into the sump so no need for the canister filter as it just takes up room and may be adding to the heat issue.

 

[Browner20]

BTW - if you are new to the hobby, sell that canister filter and chiller and buy a good protein skimmer. You can add biological filtration by adding live rock, ceramic bio blocks, etc and add chemical filtration by throwing a bag of carbon in the reaction chamber. However you should add something mechanical to physically remove the "dirt" before it has a chance to break down which adds to the need for the other two types of filtration, hence the protein skimmer.

Before you do any of that I recommend that you visit bulkreefsupply.com (BRS) and start watching their vidoes (BRS TV) to give you a basis for your own decision making. Everything I mentioned are quick fixes to the heat problem but only your own knowledge will keep you in the hobby long term. BRS is almost finished with a whole series where they set up a pretty advanced tank. However through the series they break down each process, filtration method, lighting, etc into very simple to understand concepts and why each is or isn't important.

 

[Alan Griesemer]

Thanks for the all the suggestions, one question so i have a separate heater and chiller? i thought it was a combo heater / chiller? If the heater is separate, what part is it in my photos?