Temperature fix

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Rich42082

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jun 3, 2011
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Anyone know how to lower temperature without having to buy an expensive chiller?

Running the nova extreme 8X54 for 8 hrs a day. My temperature was reaching 86. I changed the lighting to 4 daytime bulbs on for four hours, all bulbs on for two hours and my Actinic bulbs for last two hours for the same 8 hours a day. This brought temp down to 83 / 84 max.

On average my AC is at 74/76.

Need help with this issue and really can't afford a chiller right now.
 
Rich42082 said:
Anyone know how to lower temperature without having to buy an expensive chiller?

Running the nova extreme 8X54 for 8 hrs a day. My temperature was reaching 86. I changed the lighting to 4 daytime bulbs on for four hours, all bulbs on for two hours and my Actinic bulbs for last two hours for the same 8 hours a day. This brought temp down to 83 / 84 max.

On average my AC is at 74/76.

Need help with this issue and really can't afford a chiller right now.

Turn your AC down or buy a fan to blow across the water.
 
Thanks I'll try the fans. The bottled water seems like a great idea but I don't want to worry about adding the bottles everyday. I guess if the fans don't lower my temp then I won't have a choice.
 
I keep my ac at 70 and sometimes lower. There's one thing I dont mind paying for is a cool house. I work in extreme heat.
 
My AC drops automatically at night to 70 up until I wake up in the morning. I can't afford leaving it at 70 all day. If I could I'ld have a chiller.
 
Fishfighter said:
I keep my ac at 70 and sometimes lower. There's one thing I dont mind paying for is a cool house. I work in extreme heat.

++++1 I don't get how people can come home to a blazing house lol I work to hard for that @*$! Haha and that is how I keep my tank at temp :)
 
Would you try unplugging your heater? Even if you set it to,76 it may be running higher. If your house if 74/76, the tank shouldn't be 10 degrees higher. Your not running halides. T5's give off heat, but not that much. Worth a try. We unplugged ours and the temp stays at about 78 now. With the heater at 76, we were jumping to 80 on some days.

I'd say it's worth at least a try.
 
Unplug the heater it may have a stuck thermostat put in a pail of water for a few hours then check the temp in the pail
 
Rosesrblu1 said:
Would you try unplugging your heater? Even if you set it to,76 it may be running higher. If your house if 74/76, the tank shouldn't be 10 degrees higher. Your not running halides. T5's give off heat, but not that much. Worth a try. We unplugged ours and the temp stays at about 78 now. With the heater at 76, we were jumping to 80 on some days.

I'd say it's worth at least a try.

Not true my home is 65 and I have my tank up to 80 during peak light hours with a 6 bulb t5 with built in cooling fans.. that's 15 degrees warmer then my home lol

Edit* this is also an open top 46 gallon reef with an open sump/fuge
 
It could also be my mag 9 and my swc150 skimmer. I've read these can also produce heat. I've purchase a fan off of amazon hopefully this works. If not I'll try freezing water bottles and as a last resort I'll drop my AC temp to 70 all day. I've already disconnected my heater.

My temp is at 82 this morning and the lights are off except my sump light that turns off when my DT lights turn on.
 
Rich42082 said:
It could also be my mag 9 and my swc150 skimmer. I've read these can also produce heat. I've purchase a fan off of amazon hopefully this works. If not I'll try freezing water bottles and as a last resort I'll drop my AC temp to 70 all day. I've already disconnected my heater.

My temp is at 82 this morning and the lights are off except my sump light that turns off when my DT lights turn on.

Every pump will add heat so keep that in mind
 
LEDs or a chiller. Other than those two, you have to try to live with it. Constant temperature swings will cause major problems eventually. I tried for years using MH lights and fans, but always had problems with temp and my corals suffered from it. Got the chiller and everything got better. Then changed out to LEDs and it was perfect.
 
+1 on what was said above. Even the temp difference between my tank with 4 T5HO bulbs is drastically different than the one with my Radions above it. Next summer I will be adding a chiller to the system. It getting up to 100 is dumb when you live in an old home w/o insulation. I literally run the AC all day long to keep my tanks at the correct temperature and my dog from cooking himself while I'm at work.
 
Anyone know of any good LED lighting system for my set up?
 
There are lots of them now. Look at different posts. Some love the Radions (great light but $$$). Some folks like the newest generation of Chinese LED panels (what I use). I still recommend a minimum of 2 watts per gallon of LED for soft corals and up to 3-4 watts per gallon (depending on tank depth) for hard corals. These should be high power LEDs from 1-10 watts each. Generally they have lenses installed to narrow the focus of the LEDs. A mixture of white and royal blue LEDs is common. Dimmable panels are nice, but not necessary to keeping corals. I have also built my own panels...easy as pie. I am building a moving light for my frag tank that uses just 2 LEDs, one 100 watt cool white and one 100 watt royal blue. Just IMO.
 
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