12 gallon nano? Chiller Needed?

[Squado]

Hey, I was just wondering about some tempature issues with a 12 gallon nano tank. The current plan for the deisgn will be 1 fish, couple of inverts, and corals. The T5 lighting system is raising the tempature to almost 84 degrees during the day and dropping to 79 at night. The current set up of the tank is 16 pounds of live sand, and 6 pounds of live rock (soon to be more). The only chillers that I can find on the net or in a store are for larger tanks and I cant find any nano chillers. Do I need a chiller or can their be something else done? Thanks in advance.

 

[geckofrog]

Try Fans to cool your tank during the day, you'll be surprised at how much that helps! (its cheap too )

also you can raise the tempature of your heater to 82, so when your lights turn off your water will not drop to 79 degrees at night. And if you added some fans you could get your temp down to 82.

 

[roka64]

Try Fans to cool your tank during the day, you'll be surprised at how much that helps! (its cheap too

I agree. Can you lift the lights a little higher off the tank. Where is the tank located, ie; cubby hole, against a wall, in a corner?

 

[Squado]

The tank is currently located on a dresser in a bedroom against a wall. The lights on the tank can be lifted, its just that they lift on an angle and basically would blind anyone who waled into the room. As for the fan idea, that seems pretty reasonable. Would corals/fish be able to live in an environment where the tempature would lfuctuate so much (in terms of 4 degrees)?

 

[FishFrik]

IMO, u shouldn't lift the light up to reduce heat cuz that reduces the amount of light ur tank is getting. Go wit the fans

 

[abnmojo]

They make a small chiller for nanos - it is not too expensive, as far as chillers go. I was looking at it for my 12 gallon nano cube at one time thinking about trying some colder water catalina gobies, who like water closer to 70, not 80. I know it is electric, not coolant based, there is a probe that you have to drill into your tank and an electronic controller. I think the whole setup was about $120.

I had similiar problems with my 2 1/2 gallon nano tank and the 18wats of PC on it. The room temp was 75, all the time, and the water temp was 85 or higher. A fan dropped the temp down to 82. The only thing that worked, was to move the tank to a cooler room and drop the house temp down so that the room the tank was in was about 70.

As far as temp stability goes, it all depends. Most coral reefs are VERY stable in temp, however, if you are putting frags of tank raised corals in there you will probably be ok with 4 degree swing, for most corals.

My nanos are 80 during the day, and I have a heater that kicks in at night to keep the temp at 78 minimum during the night.