Condesation.............

[mikedurrant]

Is there any way i can stop condesation appearing on the side of my half-filled crab tank, it's pretty annoying cos it's hard to see in except in the water-filled part of it. Is there anything I can do to prevent the condesation building up, there isn't even a heater in the tank, it's just the same temp. as my room (about 22-23 degrees C)?????

Thanks guys,

Mike

 

[justDIY]

hmm

the condensation is likely occuring from one of two things.

1) the temperature in your room gets above that in the tank, so that condensation from the air forms on the glass

2) the temperature in your room gets below that of the water in the tank, so the water from the tank evaporates and then touches the cooler glass and condenses.

either way, it's due to the temperature not being held constant in the room and/or the tank

the easiest solution would be to heat the tank water, but if it's a cold water crab, it might not like that

another thing that might work is a fan, to keep air moving around the tank, so it doesn't have time to settle and condense

 

[madasafish]

Only prob. with a fan, though, is the incredibly high evaporation rate you'll get with it on, even if it's not blowing directly on the water surface. I was losing 5 gallons a day on my 55 with a fan cooling it this summer!

This is one of a few problems--carefully avoided in advertisements--that seem to strike all paludarium set-ups. When I tried it with my crayfish tank, I just got a lot of water on the inside of the glass, and eventually the dissolved metals and salts in the water left an unsightly white reisdue (esp. when I routinely added salt to my tank). Sorry to hear it's such a big problem for you.

 

[mikedurrant]

Cheers for the replies, think I'll just have to live with it.

If anyone's got any clever ideas feel free to make a suggestion.

Only prob. with a fan, though, is the incredibly high evaporation rate you'll get with it on

This would probably not be such a problem as the water only has about 0.5 square cm to escape from, the rest of the top is sealed very well????


Cheers guys,

Mike