Chillers?

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cichlidfish

cichlidfish

Peacock Bass
MFK Member
Jun 18, 2005
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Anyone running chillers on their tanks? I have been really struggling with keeping the water temps down (water changes mostly). My temps are at 82-84f even when my central are and thermostat is set at 78. I keep the lights off during the day and turn them on for night. So I have been thinking about a chiller, but they are really expensive and its really hard to justify the cost for only 3-4 months of the year its really hot. The thing is the CA cichlids I have like the lower to mid 70fs. I want the best for their health so should I get a chiller? If so what is best for a 150g tank?
 
Not sure what would be cheaper, portable ac blowing at back and bottom of tank, or a chiller. Heat has to be coming from somewhere for your tank to be warmer than room. Considered a small cooling fan to evac the warmer air from between your lights and tank?
I use IR thermometers a lot. Found this area to be a major "hot spot" even though we can barely feel any difference at all with our bare hands.
 
I would check your heaters, they may be running hot.

Just buy a small fan and have blow across the tank.
Or freeze bottles of water and float the frozen bottles in the tank.
 
Thanks guys. Once it started warm out I took out my heaters.
I will look into fans. I did see that they are much cheaper than chillers. I'll also turn the AC down (wife may not be happy about that lol).
 
I had some issues with overheating this summer and i actually ended up turning down my heaters and eventually removing them outright. It seemed to help alot. I'm buying all new heater controllers for my tanks before winter. All of my aqueon heaters seem to turn on at the right time, but they stick on much longer than they need to and heat the water to loke 80° when i had them set at 72°

I haven't had an issue since removing them. Most of my equipment, pumps, and lights are inefficient and do a good job heating the water for most of the year. Lol.

At my old house i didn't have any Ac. I used cooling fans and topped off the evaporation (like 1-3 gallons per tank per week) with RO water.
 
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