high heat in tank

[troutman11111]

any one know where to get a cheaper chiller for a 75gal. i read the other post,great info on the ice bag. i was putting mine in main tank tonight and i have a 20gal refugium. this is the first time tonight it happend to me. my starfish let me know.temp was 84,1 hour before the 500watt mh went off I keep the tank at 78. i have no cover.

 

[BillyZ]

neither of those temps are "bad" on their own. it's the temperature swings that stress out the fish. My heater is set to 81 and it will go up a little occasionaly to 84-85 which isn't too bad. much more than 4-5 degree swing too quickly is what most seem to warn against.

as far as a cheap chiller I'm not sure... if your budget is really tight you could, improvise.

go to home depot or wherever you can find cheap rubber tubing (the kind that will fit on the out flow of your power head) and buy yourself 15-20 feet (at $1 a foot thats $15-$20) and 10-20 gallon rubbermaid tub ($4 at my HD) connect one end of the hose to your PH, coil the rest of the hose in the tub with the end of the hose returning to your tank. Fill the tub with cold tap water (i live in the north east so our tap water is rather chilly most of the time! but if you need to, just add a bag of ice) turn on the pump and as the water moves through the coil it will chill down. This is basicaly how a pop fountain machine works. If you have extra cash you could even make a counter flow chiller loop rather inexpensivly, my brother and I made one for chilling the wort when we brew beer. it takes the hot wort (boiling hot) and chills it to 74 degrees (and could chill even more, we adjust the amount of "chill" by adjusting the speed of the cold water flow). If your interested in how to make one of those let me know, i'll post up some quick DIY instructions.

 

[troutman11111]

that hose idea is nice,but i got my 5 ferrets to deal with and the wife,my tank is in the living room. and there is no more room under tank with my 20 gal refugium. 750.00 for a 1/5hp chiller thats nuts. i'll turn up the ac some more and keep an eye out. thank for your info. looks like i'm going to work on my wife about giving me what i need......... heck it only took 6months to get my mh/pclight 8) walt

 

[troutman11111]

i got a styrofome cooler with lid, 20ft clear hose and a penguin 550 pump 145gph. $40.00 total. put the hose in and made 2 holes in lid for the hoses, 20lbs ice and tuned it on. the water coming out is 78degrees after1hour still 78degrees.it is slow flow alright but it got the tank down to 80 from 84 in 8hrs. i turned the pump off tonight because i did not want it to get to cold. the water still is 78 coming out from the cooler. this is working just fine. with the styrofome the ice has not even melted much as of tonight. thanks again for the great info i got everything under the tank and out of sight.

 

[BillyZ]

Great! I'm glad that worked out for you. And if you ask me it worked perfectly. You wouldn't want the temp in the tank to change much faster than that (even if the temps were really high). You don't want to shock your fish.

Quick question, you mentioned you have AC in your home, has your tank always had temp problems or is this a recent change?

 

[reefrunner69]

If you have extra cash you could even make a counter flow chiller loop rather inexpensivly, my brother and I made one for chilling the wort when we brew beer. it takes the hot wort (boiling hot) and chills it to 74 degrees (and could chill even more, we adjust the amount of "chill" by adjusting the speed of the cold water flow). If your interested in how to make one of those let me know, i'll post up some quick DIY instructions.

I for one, would like to see the instructions for this and an estimated cost, if it's not tto much trouble

 

[alrmc4]

i will second that

 

[BillyZ]

did you want instructions for the beer or the chiller?

I've put together a quick sketch for the chiller but I'll post that up in the DIY section so it will be a little easier to find/share with others.

Troutman, would you be willing to take a couple of quick snap shots of your cooler coil chiller and post them up in the DIY section? Lots of people would like to be able to have an affordable chiller for emergencies and I think you managed to create a very versitile solution.

 

[reefrunner69]

Troutman, would you be willing to take a couple of quick snap shots of your cooler coil chiller and post them up in the DIY section?

If you go ahead and post them, I'll download them, delete them from your post, then add them back. This will not count against your upload space it will count against mine

 

[BillyZ]

Instructions for a counter flow chiller

 

[troutman11111]

yes, i will. i never had mh/pc light only 1 96wattpc and 4 30watts and this was with the glass top on. now i have 500watt mh and 110pc with no glass top. walt