Water Evaporation

[tino28]

I have a 90 gallon tank, keep it at 84 degrees. The winter is so cold this year the heat in my house is on a lot( forced air system) my problem is I notice more water evaporation then I thought was normal. I also run a wet/ dry system..is this normal and are there ways to limit it. I do have the covered pretty good.

 

[The Trooper]

You could try some condensation trays, these let water condense on them and drip back into the tank.

 

[mr_X]

I would not cover the tank. Your PH will most likely suffer if so. I would rather have twice the evap. Also, 84 is a little bit high. Try slowly dropping it to around 78.

 

[dmolavi]

Drop the temp, and if you have a humidifier for the house, use it.

Otherwise, it's either manual top off, or buy an ATO.

 

[daney90]

LOL i had the same prob before. Its been days that its -20C here and I don't open the windows at all cause theyre frozen.

What you can do is get humidifier and have it on at night time (thats what I do). You can also make a simple gravity fed water top off system with air valves to adjust the flow rate if youre in a tight budget.

 

[lstimpy]

I'd make sure you top it off every morning and double check the specific gravity also. Sometimes my tank shows a steepish drop off in the sump and it needs regular RODI and sometimes needs a gallon or so of saltwater. Or you could move to Florida.

 

[Affordable Aquatic]

If manually topping off the tank daily is becoming a chore, why not look into an automatic top off, ATO? A float switches will trigger a slow refil of your sump with RODI, keeping your tank always filled and your salinity stable.

 

[mr_X]

I'd make sure you top it off every morning and double check the specific gravity also. Sometimes my tank shows a steepish drop off in the sump and it needs regular RODI and sometimes needs a gallon or so of saltwater. Or you could move to Florida.

Salt doesn't evaporate. If you are losing salinity, you are losing water by something other than evaporation.

 

[lstimpy]

Yah, I have a smaller tank and I do a lot of testing. Infrequently I have to add some extra saltwater to keep the sump level perfectly stable along with top off water.

 

[mr_X]

That doesn't make sense. What are you using to test the SG with?
Are you getting a lot of salt creep?

 

[dmolavi]

My interpretation was that he removes water frequently from the tank for testing parameters, and thus needs to top off with salt water occasionally to make up for that removal, separate from the RO topoff...

 

[mr_X]

That's a lot of test tubes then...lol.

 

[lstimpy]

No, not really. I don't put saltwater in often, but there have been times that my sump line was a little low but the salinity was where I wanted it so I put saltwater in so the salinity wouldn't drop. I'm a little OCD.

 

[Gregcoyote]

Salt doesn't evaporate. If you are losing salinity, you are losing water by something other than evaporation.

If you have a poorly tuned skimmer, lots of salt creep or a leak in the system, that will cause salt to drop. Not evaporation. 84F is a bit high.