Overheating in the UK

[Waterloo Kid]

I am debating about setting up a marine tank. It would be a Rio400 with either 4x54W t5s or a MH pendant. I'm a bit concerned about the temperature of the tank and whether I would require a chiller. I would be keeping a limited reef tank with low light inverts etc. Would there be much of a problem with the tank running too hot. At what point does a chiller become necessary?

WK

 

[blout]

id wait till it it gets cooler for a good start into marines maybe november time when it starts to chill down and that will give you time before summer comes so you could afford a chiller, at the moment ive been wishing i had a chiller or aircon unit to chill my tank but so far have got by, by putting fronzen ro water cubes into my sump which kept the temp down

 

[bryce]

Hello W.K.

I have a Rio 180 marine tank which has been running for about 5 months, I also live in a top floor flat, part of a converted building built in 1899 which gets very warm on hot days typically I can come home to find it at 28-30deg C in the summer. So it's fair to say that my tank suffers from abient temperture flutuations but I have a solution!

Buy a cheap electric fan (not battery as they don't last long) and point it at the water, this quickly drops the temperture (although you will suffer from water loss - top up with fresh water).

If it's going to be a hot day I switch on the timer so the fan switches on @ 11am and off at 2pm.

Cheers,

Bryce.

 

[Waterloo Kid]

Bryce,
What sort of temp can a fan alone keep the tank at? If the ambient is 28-30 and a decent water temp would be 24-25 then can a fan achieve this?

WK

 

[bryce]

WK,

My fan keeps the tank at about 24.7C but the heater tries to bring it up to 25C. The fan is your typical 20cmish diameter two speed type from B&Q, with the base resting against the wall.

I do have a couple of the battery operated clip-on types which I will convert to running from a power supply as they look neater and work well.

Some thing that also helps is that on my tank (RIO 180) I have removed both the covers so all that is coverning the tank is the light bar. Without doing this I coudn't control the temperture during the cold weather, just went too high.

Good luck,

Cheers,

Bryce.