Getting ready to drop some change down on a 1/3 to 1/2 hp chiller, wounder if anyone has a link to any threads on reliability of chillers, dos and donts … :
: a Poll? Thanks in advance…
are you sure you need one?
Is 87 too hot? ::hitsthefan::
[quote=“justsayno, post:3, topic:4115”]
Is 87 too hot? ::hitsthefan::[/quote]
yes! try fans in the meantime
With proper set up , we can often not need chillers. I like to have hoods that have free flowing chimney effect flow of cooling room air up and through the hood. i make my own hoods that sit on the tanks. i make them 1/2 inch larger on the inside than the tank. that leaves air space all around for room air to flow up and into the hood and out the open back. or also slotted tops to just let the hot air from the lights straight out the top. passive cooling.
Height of the lights above the water is also a factor. depending on the lights. There are lots of ways to set things up that dont over heat the tank. We just have to give it some thought.
Justsayno what is your setup like? 400W MH on a nano? The cost of a good chiller is often the same as replacing your MH with LEDs and actually the LEDs would pay for themseleves in electrical and replacement bulb savings. If your house gets above 80*F then you’ll need a chiller, but other then that looking at heat sources like old inefficient return pumps and power hog lighting could do the trick.
I honestly don’t know what a good brand is. Worked on hundreds of tanks and never found a single one that required a chiller. If your tank is 300g plus I may have a chiller I could sell to you. No idea if it is good or not and it would probably be larger in size then a nano tank itself.
180 with 60 in a refuge, refuge is in a foyer (spell check) with plenty of windows. Last year it ran and had to chill it. I did change out to a external return pump, getting rid of the heat sink that was immersed. The old chiller sprung a leak in Oct, so we disconected and trashed it… The wood encloser with lights does have fans to cool above the tank., it hasen’ overheated yet , just trying to plan ahead a little. Thanks for the input, I’ll weight in the 500-700 cost of a chiller verses buying LED’s to cure the issue.
Check that the fans are running well, free of dust and what not. Running 8+ hours a day they can get jammed up in time or just go bad if hit with too much salt water. Look into perhaps picking up a couple more fans or just cutting more vent holes. Are you runnng metal halides? How tall is your 180? 24" tall?
i would try the fans for now but if you are hitting 87 now you will probably need a chiller for the summer. I would go with the 1/2 half horse. If you go smaller it takes forever for the chiller to bring the temp down and the chiller ends up heating up the room. I also have a JBJ and I have been pleased with it. I have 1/3 on my 125 and it takes a while to bring the temp down. Ever since I switched to T5s and now I run fans on the tank and sump, I dont have the chiller kicking on very much. Just my 2 cents.
Here something to think about
I have used fans along with running my lights at night to keep my tank’s temperature down during summer months in an apartment without central air.
I just got 2 of these and hooked them up to my Reefkeeper lite and they come on when it hits 81.1 and go off when it hits 80.9 and just cycles all day. The volume it moves cools the water really fast.
This is how I have my fans, AC plugged into DA reefkeeper.
heh they were turning at 2450 rpms when I took that shot and you can see the blades… cool.