cooling aquarium temperature

I've used fans pointed at the water's surface before. It worked ok, it was on a smaller tank, a 29g i think, that was in my laundry room at my old apartment. It got really hot in that room.

I just had a small deskfan about the size of a 100mm computer fan. It kept my tank under 80* F. The room was maybe 80-85*f during summer.

From what ive read fans will only get you a few degrees of cooling. The main issue I had was evaporation. Every other day I had to top off the tank with a couple gallons of water. I was buying RO water so I didnt load the water with too many minerals or dissolved solids.

Alternative methods are to cool the room, or run a chiller.

I've read on some reef forums sbout guys putting frozen water bottles in their sumps when their chillers failed. It would bd a pain to rotate bottles out, but would work short term.

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I'd use a chiller. I want to setup a trout tank at some point and for a chiller I want to make a DIY one, uarujoey on youtube made a good one out of a mini fridge.

Hey divemaster,

Just kinda curious about your diy chiller plans.

I used to keep natives and had a need for a chiller. I looked into using mini-freezers and fridges. I couldnt come up with a coil that wasn't insulating. I felt I needed a metal coil to run my water through inside the chiller. The only concensus I could come up with was titanium or a low carbon 316 stainless. Both were cost prohibitive. Pvc and flexible tubing have a poor heat exchange, so I abandoned the project. Seeing as how a good chiller can cost under $500 I couldn't justify any of it.



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mudbuttjones said:

Hey divemaster,

Just kinda curious about your diy chiller plans.

I used to keep natives and had a need for a chiller. I looked into using mini-freezers and fridges. I couldnt come up with a coil that wasn't insulating. I felt I needed a metal coil to run my water through inside the chiller. The only concensus I could come up with was titanium or a low carbon 316 stainless. Both were cost prohibitive. Pvc and flexible tubing have a poor heat exchange, so I abandoned the project. Seeing as how a good chiller can cost under $500 I couldn't justify any of it.



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Never thought of that, I'd be willing to throw in some good money to keep trout though .

U can also add powerheads the more circulation u have in the tank the better, it will keep the water from warming up. Also during warmer weather I open one of the lids or replace it with a net or mesh over so air can escape an wont cause ur temp to rise or if ur really wanna save money u can freeze water bottles an put them in the tank lol


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Circulation helps greatly with cooling. Just be sure you've got efficient pumps that don't run hot.



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Unfortunately, this species doesn't well with much current. The less movement the better. Ideally, the temperature should be down to 18C for the winter months (16C would be best). I don't think that you can point enough fans at the surface to drop it down that much. You may need to invest in a chiller.

iamkarlo said:

Thanks for all the replies, they have been real helpful. I think I will invest in a chiller, at the moment im trying the plastic bottle trick mudbuttjones recommend which does the trick for only a short time before they have melted, my tank doesn't get much colder than 28 with air con blasting. so chiller on pay day, that will give the wife something to moan about lol

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Make sure you can plumb the chiller into a separate room. They work like a window air conditioner. Meaning they put out heat into the room as a byproduct of cooling water. So if you have it in the same room your cooler water will be negated by warmer air temperatures.