Came to a bad realization

[saltwaterfishlover]

well I guess I need to do this so any input will be greatly appreciated

my tank reached 88 degrees today.. threw in some pasta and garlic and made "Spaghetti allo Scoglio" .

ideas for keeping it cool.... just did a water change and added a fan.

what can I do to keep things in a more pleasent range. will be adding 800wt of Mh ina few weeks so even more of an issue...

a) best chiller?
b) cooling alternatives?
c) saltwater ice cubes?
d) run the return line thru the tank on the toilet?

tank stats

120ag rr
versatops (glass cover)
30 gal sump/refugium 1/2 full
1 150 watt heater
mag 1800 return pump
110 wt pc over sump

this over tank
icecap 660 with 4 46.5 vho 110wt ea
sunseeker with 2 46.5 vho 110wt ea

room temp was 76
currently 72

thanks
andy

[mirski57]

First.......I have to give credit to Tom at Caribbean Forest for this idea. If you need a quick temporary solution (and Cheap). I was told to swap out 2 litre bottles of frozen water in your sump. While 1 bottle is thawing in your sump, one is re-freezing in the freezer. Then when the one in the sump is depleted, swap it with the one currently in the freezer, and so on and so forth, etc, etc......

HTH

Mirski57

[DanGlock23]

I read that a very small portable room air-conditioner is cheaper than a chiller (much cheaper).

One guy had his smalll room air-conditioner hooked up to his AquaController so that it turned on and off just as a chiller would be cycled. He had the air-conditioner pointing down at his sump - it wasn't in a window - just sitting inside his tank stand on a couple of 2 X 4's .

Remember, I'm the new guy however - so my input is only stuff that I have read. Take it for what it is worth. Good luck!
Dan

[yaktop]

rochester NY in april. 88, something else wrong. bad heater or your lights are to close. your variance between room and tank is to large to be other than that. I'm in NE and it raises a bit to the room but not as large as your talking.

[saltwaterfishlover]

Yack
lights are 3" above water but 2" above glass (just 6 vho's no halide.
heater is unplugged
only mag18 running and I know I am sorry a rio 2800 runing a spray bar.. to touch both are relatively cool..... tank is still 82 now... better than 88
have fan blowing at sump still..... do you think the glass top could have made that much difference?

weekend was coolish today got warmer in house about 74-76 shouldnt make difference that temp.... maybe evap being stoped by glass is the big thing?

[_ShotgunShrimp_]

get rid of the glass top that thing makes your tank an oven and also limits your air exchange at the surface of the tank... GET that glass offa there!!!!!!!

[Gary Majchrzak]

andy: We have ALL been faced with this dilemma at one point...
I would agree the first thing to do is remove the glass top, ASAP.Evaporative cooling cannot be underestimated. Next- raise the lights farther from the waters surface.Especially the halide. Most sources will tell you the ideal distance is 10"-12" above the water's surface for MH,but every system is different.A chiller is EASILY the most expensive way to go.Use central air or window units before investing in a chiller! The other methods mentioned here by the others will work,as well as straight up ice-cubes in an emergency.Box fans blowing on the long side of an aquarium have a TREMENDOUS impact on bringing down it's temp- especially when the top is open.Even $10 clip-on fans can help.I know somebody that hooked up a temp probe to a controller that would shut down lights and start up fans when the tank reached 85 degrees.My long return line into the basement helps to keep my tanks temp down.Many possibilities to explore. Chillers are the last resort,in my opinion.Find out what works before hooking up that second MH lamp.

[Stoli]

Gary:

Not to hijack this thread, but I just noticed that you are plumbed to your basement. I've just called a plumber to do the same with my tank. (I'm so psyched. No more bringing buckets of SW from the basement.) Anyway, I've been trying to figure out what kind of return pump to use. The tank is a 90 and the run should be pretty straight from the basement to the tank. We have 14 course basement (pretty deep) but I still want the sump on the floor for the cooling effect (I guess not a total thread hijack). Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Stoli.

[ReeferMac]

Actually, I don't know if I'd put it on the basement slab... I've thought of the same thing myself, but decided against doing that for situations in the winter, and at night... that's going to continue to cool the water, and my heater's are going to have to CRANK to keep up with that (I'm imagining...).
Would rather pay the electric in the summer to cool the room (with a dehumidifier), than to heat it year round.

- Mac

[ToddsReef]

Andy,
How much topoff do you add daily?
Todd

[saltwaterfishlover]

lets see before tops 2-3 gallons of top off a day after tops less than a gallon... so I guess the tops need to go......theres $40 down the drain...maybe can incorporate them int the hood as splash gaurd.... but not sealing the tank

[Gary Majchrzak]

Andy{I don't think you saw this} and Stoli: There is a pic of my sump on my website.It ain't pretty- but it works pretty good.The longer the overflow drain and return lines are,the more cooling effect.The cooling effect can be DRAMATIC.Buckets are OUT.Use PUMPS to do all physical water movement.Even small submersible pumps can be plopped into a 5 gallon pail to lift water!The sump does not have to be directly under the tank in the basement,but it will make the pump more efficient if it is.The cooling effect will be lessened with the shorter 'run',however.I like the sump at eye level because mine doubles as an algae scrubber/refugium.And when company sleeps over,I can still go downstairs late at night with a beer and watch the micro-dramas unfolding while everyone else is fast asleep.My main pump is a Little Giant 4MDQ-SC.All my pumps,sump,etc. used to be in the tank stand.The noise,heat,cramped quarters were too much upstairs.Moving it into the basement was one of the best things I did.I can HIGHLY recommend placing a sump downstairs!

[saltwaterfishlover]

would love to put it into the basement... but I dont have one.... am in a second store town home. and below the tank is the neighbors garage... hmmm maybe can sweet talk him? drill holes thru hardwood floor 18" or insulation.... 1.5" drywall.... hmm maybe a small airconditioner mounted in the stand might work..
btw no halide being run yet.... soon I hope...bulbs shoud be here friday.... getting some fans for in the stand today.... took glass off... see what happens... Mac is coming over tonight... maybe get some ideas from him....

[ToddsReef]

I did some calculations (below) and this is what I found (excuse the likely errors as my physics skills aren't exactly polished). NOTE: these calculations are based on a 120G reef with an assumed actual water volume of 93G) ---

Conclusion: If the morning temperature of your tank is 78F and at the end of your lighting cycle the temperature is 88F then you added about 8060 kilojoules (kJ) of heat to the tank's water. Based on the heat of vaporization of water you would give off approximately 8190kJ of heat by evaporating one gallon of water. So increasing the evaporation (with fans and removing glass etc.) by 1 gallon per day you would maintain a temperature of 78F. If it only took 5 hours after your lights came on to get to 88F and your lighting cycle is 10 hours long then you would need to increase the evaporation by two gallons per day (assuming that all of your lights came on at once). Note that these gallon values are increases above a baseline evaporation used to compensate for heat from sources other than lights (pumps, etc.).

Calculations: open to scrutiny as the likelihood of error is quite high.

1. Heat given off by evaporation of one gallon of water (heat of vaporization based on 100C as I don't have the values to calculate the true value and it probably wouldn't change the conclusion much anyway) ===>
-heat of vaporization of water at 100C is 40.7kJ/mol
-1 galllon = 3.785 liters
-3.785 liters of pure water at 100C = 3.626KG
-3.626KG of water is 201.22 moles of water (molar mass of H20 is 18.02 grams)
-201.22mol (40.7kJ/mol) = 8189.69 kJ = heat of vaporization of one gallon of pure water

2. How much heat does the water in your tank absorb in order to go from 78F to 88F? This calculation is based only on the water in the tank as I do not know the specific heat of LR and LS other than to say that they are MUCH less than that of water and will be ignored - sorry, I also ignored the difference in specific heat of salt water and pure water as I don't know that value either) ==>
-estimated 93 gallons of actual water in the tank (from a calculator posted on RC that I have a link to, I used 100lbs of LR and 200lbs of LS to get the 93G but this is a very rough estimate because LR can have huge variations in density)
-specific heat of water is 4180 J/KG per degree Celsius
-one degree Celsius is 9/5 degrees F
-So you have about 347KG of water in the tank and you are raising the temp 10F (or 5.56C) then you are adding 8060 KJ of heat.

[_ShotgunShrimp_]

Could you do that again in english :)

[saltwaterfishlover]

even with coffe and that I used to love and understand physics...

HUH?????

i htink that means I added to much heat for the disipation but.....
you just caused a mental meltdown....

[mirski57]

How about the simplest approach...

What are you using to take the temperature of the tank. I use 2 separate digital probes from Radio Shack for $9.99 each. If the batteries get low, the temp starts to jump around, so I keep both going to double check.

[Stoli]

Holy Whitman Boy Genius Batman:

That was one hell of an impressive calculation. When I get home tonight, I'm going to take a look at my college chemistry textbook and try to duplicate them. Even if you're off by a few percent, the general theory is right on and it gives a good thumbnail of determining evaporative cooling needs.

Boy are you into this stuff, or what.

[ToddsReef]

I never have explained things very well. OK, here goes:

It takes a certain amount of heat from the lights to raise the temperature of your tank by 10F and we can calculate how much heat this is (or at least we can attempt to).

You can cool your tank with evaporation and we can also calculate the amount of heat that you can get rid of with one gallon evaporation.

So for your tank it would take about one gallon of evaporation to lower the temperature about 10F.

Now, if it took your lights the whole lighting cycle to raise the temperature of the water by 10F, then you would need 1 gallon of evaporation per day more than you currently have. If it only takes them half of your lighting cycle to raise the temp 10F then you would need 2 gallons more per day of evaporation...and so forth. Hope this helps.

[Gary Majchrzak]

Todd, man your'e a trip! I am gonna miss you when you leave!

[Guy]

AWESOME Todd!!!!!! I'm gonna hafta save your post for future reference. I assume it can be interpolated into different water volumes by simple relation? :)

Now... Since you're the whiz can you calculate the cooling effect of a thawing a 2 litre bottle of ice on 100 gallons of water to show everyone that it's not worth the bother! Fans man, fans! Todd just proved it!!!!!

Great!!! I love it...

Guy

[cperson]

1. The glass over the water is most likely the main problem. You are creating a greenhouse. The glass will allow nearly all the IR to pass into the water and prohibit evaporation from occurring. If you only have the VHO's don't worry about water splash. Clean the tubes before your photoperiod begins if salt spray build-up is a problem.

2. Fans, fans, fans. Add fans blowing across the water surface if the natural evaporation is not enough to maintain your water temp. Since you have a sump you have more surface area to use.

3. By lowering your room temp you will be able to exchange more heat from your glass and water surface.

[ReeferMac]

I did some calculations (below)

LOL... Fahking Kolledge Kids.... I can't believe I used to be one. You need to slow down, or smoke more Dope man, you're going to pull something important in your brain one of these days' and not be able to pass your boards...

Hehehe, some quick calculations...

Gotta love it man, I _AM_ gonna miss that brain of yours :-)
When you leaving us? I gotta have another meet before then.
Hehe, I'm still chuckling to myself. Folks at work are really going to think I'm weird. (as if the "Live Fish" packages and exploding Astaxanthum Powder weren't enough)

- Mac

[ToddsReef]

Kevin just reminded me that I better get back to the library and study for the boards but this is much more fun, so go ahead and get some more coffee Andy (and whatever else Kev) as this is interesting stuff (in response to Guy's question) ==>

Conclusion #2: In order to cool Andy's tank from 88F to 78F by putting 2liter bottles full of ice in the sump rather than using 1 gallon of evaporation you would need 10.66 two liter bottles of ice!!! Glad you brought that up Guy, I hadn't thought about it that way...man, I really appreciate my 2.3 gallons per day of evaporation as I would need another refrigerator to hold the 24.52 bottles of ice each day!!!

Calculations #2:
-Assume that the ice is at 32F and will be melted and then heated to 78F
-heat of fusion of ice tells us that it would take 333 KJ to turn one KG of ice at 32F into one KG of liquid water at 32F. Then to heat the water we would use the specific heat of water to determine that it would take 106.8 kJ to then heat that water to 78F. So per liter it would take 439840.8 J to turn the ice into water at 78F.
-Recall, we needed 8060000J to cool Andy's tank 10F, so we would need 19.55KG of ice to do this.
-Since ice is less dense than water we also have to take into account that we could only put 1.834 liters of water in each bottle to end up with 2L bottles completely filled with ice (otherwise we would have a bunch of broken bottles).
-So as I said above, with 1.834 KG of ice in each bottle at 32F and with time to allow this to completely melt and then warm up to 78F you would end up needing 10.66 bottles to replace one gallon of evaporation!

Man, I'm sure that this stuff isn't on the boards!!!!
Talk to you guys later.
Todd

[saltwaterfishlover]

hey Todd do you think one of those bypass machines for open heart surgery would work? they have to heat and cool right?


I think I might be able to find one in the basement in the halway maybe.....

[Zmann]

For those of you planning on putting axial fans in your enclosed cabinet blowing on your sump. Don't forget that the humid air that your sucking through that fan carries some salt with it. Salt is an excellent conductor and more then likely over a period of time you will be heating your water with a small fire instead of cooling it. So if your adding fans to your sump make sure their mounted on the cabinet blowing in fresh air and not just circulating. Take this from someone who has had this happen to him. 2 years ago on my 65g I pulled the idiot maneuver of blowing a fan directly on my sump. Luckily I was in the living room when she blew and started on fire!

[Mac]

This thread is getting deep. way too.
M
A
C
when is the next partee?

[yaktop]

raise the lights, recommend 8 - 10" for MH and a fan when you do them. its the glass tops for sure - greenhouse effect it is. you'll end up with temp issues in july/aug maybe - a/c or cellar I'm hoping for. run the lines through the toilet, yeah my wife would like that :lol:

[saltwaterfishlover]

removed tops tank never went over 80 today hmmm where can i use another window...

[kmagyar]

get a chiller. Then think of all the coral you could have bought. :D

[cperson]

Todd,
Wouldn't it be more efficent if you removed the bottles of before the water got to 78F? Doesn't the rate of cooling slow as the temperatures equalize? It would take more bottles but less time. Or did you plan on putting all 10.66 bottles in the tank at the same time?

[ToddsReef]

Craig,

I'm not sure that I totally understand your question, and my answer is probably out in left field, but this is my understanding.

If your goal was to increase the rate of cooling then it would be most beneficial to replace the bottles right after they melt and while they are still at 32F as overcoming the heat of fusion of water requires more energy than the specific heat (actually, adding more bottles would be the quickest, but lets assume that we are talking about one bottle).

Also, you will get faster cooling when there is a greater difference in the temperature between the outside of the bottle and the tank water because when two particles collide they will be more likely to have different kinetic energies and thus will be more likely to transfer energy from the high energy particle to the low energy particle (cooling).

However, while it will take longer, warming one bottle from 68F to 78F will lower the temperature of the tank the same amount as warming that same bottle from 32F-42F.

Hope that I'm not totally off on this one.

When did you say you were going to be in Burlington? Let me know and I'll do my best to get a day off.

Talk to you soon,
Todd

[cperson]

Todd,
You've got the gist of what I was trying to say. In an effort to cool the water down quickly, you want to the largest delta T. That's why all the 10.66 bottles at one time would be the quickest. Additionally you need to expose as much surface area of the frozen bottles to the warm water as possible, so slightly submerging them would cool the water the fastest. Ain't thremo great!

About Vermont - we are going to Stowe August 3-10.

[pnosko]

Originally posted by ToddsReef
-Recall, we needed 8060000J to cool Andy's tank 10F, so we would need 19.55KG of ice to do this.
You just made me blow a mouthful of drink all over my monitor! LOL!!! RECALL?!?

OK, folks. Would everyone that recalled please raise your hand...

[ToddsReef]

Pete! Surprised to see your post over hear in this forum. Hope your monitor is OK (LOL), this thread is just a tad more technical than we usually get in the URS forum :)

Andy...cardiac bypass should work, I think you can get a heck of a deal on them this time of year...I think about $500,000 :D

Craig...I think that the real key is EVAPORATION for cooling and soda bottles for soda. I'll shoot you an email about Burlington...hopefully by then I'll know of a decent place to eat up there...hmmm...Wendy's or McDonalds...glad we have time to decide :p

Todd

[Gary Majchrzak]

for a classic URS thread now that warmer weather is approaching.
Anybody hear from Todd lately?

[saltwaterfishlover]

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=834201
this link seems like the fans could really help....

wow havent seen this thread in ages... good stuff tho

[Gary Majchrzak]

Great link, Andy! Looks like the Lasko will fit into really tight spaces.

[SuzLucky]

We have enough MD's among us I bet they might be able to find a well used one somewhere. Probably cheaper to go with AC. JMO:p

[SuzLucky]

Thought I was posting to wrong thread. Guess I wasn't. Just not reading fast enough.

[saltwaterfishlover]

I really got to think about getting better cooling soon... I added 2 seio 1500's last summer and tank rose 2-3 degrees. I am moddint them to have stainless steel shafts so the will run free er and put them on alternating timers for waveish action....20 minute cycles........

[nwrogers]

Those calculations are great! Good thread :)

[wastememphis]

Double Post

[wastememphis]

haha I've never read this before. I was about to ask him why he was using 100C for the evaporation... because I don't know if thats the right assumption for how many gallons of water are at the boiling point of water.... theres a distrobution thing, oh well :)

saltwaterfishlover: My Seios1100's dont always turn back on so I wouldn't reccomend putting them on a wave maker or timer.

[Blugobi]

Got the Lasko fan today...fit under my stand very nicley and on low it has kept my tank at a steady 81.7 degrees for 6 hours now on low...should help alot during the summer. I currently add about 1.5 gallons of top off H20 daily and I'm sure this will go up a bit, my auto top off is keeping up with no probs...

[LFS_worker]

I dont know if it has been mentioned yet I didnt see it but just to say it again if the MAG 18 is in your sump (submersed) get it out of there... my 24 gets pretty hot im assuming (as ... you ... me) the 18's are the same way.

[Gary Majchrzak]

Exactly. If you're considering a chiller but you are still running Magdrives (or another brand of water cooled/submersible pump) get a fan cooled pump!
I have my external fan cooled pumps set up so that their fans also blow on my sump which helps keep it cooled.

[MarksReef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7273918#post7273918 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gary Majchrzak
bunp for a classic URS thread now that warmer weather is approaching.
Anybody hear from Todd lately?
:D

[SandyS]

Gary are you still using Little Giant as your return pump? Trying to look or good choices for lot of head.

[Gary Majchrzak]

I upped the Little Giant to an Iwaki 100RLT.
I have a fan cooled GenX on my skimmer.
Both reliable pressure rated pumps.


It's fairly easy to find deals on used Iwaki and LG pumps.
If purchasing new, also consider the Blueline series of pumps.

[SkiFletch]

Great thread, really illustrates the fact that there just is not a lot of thermal mass in ice for it to be an efficient source of chilling. The only thing I'd like to add is that in the original calculations for how much energy is required to heat the tank 10F over the lighting cycle, the actual amount is MUCH more. Dont forget folks that evaporation is occuring all along the timeframe of the lighting cycle and technically aiding in keeping the temps down. Remember, the heat put in must be in balance with both the rise in temperature AND evaporation over the lighting timeframe (forget whether thats the first or second law of thermodynamics :))... Just as a blind guess I'd say that you actually input twice the heat into the tank to raise it up from 78 to 88. Still doesn't changethe amount of heat required to cool it, but you'll just have to excuse the melancholy in me ;)

I do love the value of this thread, a great teaching tool :)

[drbronx]

I purchased a small (about10 inch diameter) fan from Walmart that has a sturdy plastic clip as a mounting device. I simply clip it on the side of my sump tank blowing across the surface of the sump. Very effective in creating evaporative cooling and not a bad deal at about $9 for the fan. You do have to add significantly more top-off water but thats a small sacrifice for such a huge benefit. Even with 400 watt halides with the fan going my water temp never exceeds 82 degrees. Buy the way I also have 4" radio shack computer fans blowing in behind each halide lamp. I also have doors on the front of the canopy that I can leave slightly ajar to let more hot air escape.

[Guy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7466397#post7466397 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SkiFletch
Dont forget folks that evaporation is occuring all along the timeframe of the lighting cycle and technically aiding in keeping the temps down.

Also conductive heat loss dependent on the ambient air temp. This mostly relates to glass tanks but still quite a bit for Acrylic.

ie. if the air temp is 75F it takes more energy to raise the water temp from 82 to 83F than it does to raise it from 81 to 82. The reverse is true for cooling, the greated the difference between water & air temps the easier it is to cool.