RSM 250 Extra cooling fan(s) mod?

xCry0x

New Member
I poked around a bit and didn't see anything about this.

Has anyone tried modding the hood of the RSM 250 to add one (or more) 120mm fans to blow air in for evaporative cooling?

It seems like the feeding flap is hollow, at a minimum should be able to wire a fan on the left and right side of the top to blow air in and then cut some vents into the under side.

The rear cooling fans seem fairly inadequate.

Figured I could wire 2 120mm fans and hook them up to a temp controller to trigger them to kick on when tank temp rises.

Trying to stabilize temp without dropping $500 on a chiller =)

Was wondering if there was any glaring reason why this would be a bad idea aside from extra evap.
 

Pat24601

Well-Known Member
I did a LED conversion on my hood and I can't see any reason you couldn't physically do what you are talking about.

Whether or not it's a good idea or what problems you would run into, I have no idea.

I have the C-250, but I've always considered my stock fans fine. I did hear the prior model can have heating issues, but I can't speak to them.
 

xCry0x

New Member
Yup, I already took apart the entire hood and replaced the fans.

What I am considering wouldn't impact any of the existing electrical -- just kind of surprised I could not find anything about anyone considering it. The front flap on the hood that lifts up seems like a perfect spot to put two fans to suck in air to blow across the water surface.

I tried to unscrew it and pop it off but it seems to either be stuck on or I didn't pull hard enough ;) Might try again later.

Need to re-do the hood fans anyway. Just got the tank a few weeks ago and it is running hot - topping out around 83/84* with the rear fan going. However, I set up the light fans to vent on the left side which is the side the cooling intake is on, as a result it is pulling air about 2* hotter than it would be on the other side, which is my fault since I swapped the light venting direction without considering that.
 

RedSeaKev

RS Sponsor
I see lots and lots of threads where people try and avoid adding a chiller, I live in the UK where the weather is pretty lousy but we do occasionally have ambient temperatures up to 28c or higher, the reality is then you can have all the fans and evaporative cooling you want you are still at risk of high temperatures, it only takes a few days of high temperatures and bang goes your Coral collection which could be years old and established the loss of such animals can be heart breaking, personally I don't think the risk is worth the cost of a Chiller and we owe it to the animals to look after them.
 

ziggy

Active Member
Kev hit the nail on the head. Evaporative cooling fans become inefficient and almost worthless as the ambient room temperature continues to climb. Sounds like you may need to consider re-doing your fans to not draw air in from the hotter source.
 

Pat24601

Well-Known Member
I see lots and lots of threads where people try and avoid adding a chiller, I live in the UK where the weather is pretty lousy but we do occasionally have ambient temperatures up to 28c or higher, the reality is then you can have all the fans and evaporative cooling you want you are still at risk of high temperatures, it only takes a few days of high temperatures and bang goes your Coral collection which could be years old and established the loss of such animals can be heart breaking, personally I don't think the risk is worth the cost of a Chiller and we owe it to the animals to look after them.

Neither here nor there, really, but I've always found it interesting that in a lot of ways our UK friends seem to have more trouble with heat than me when I live in the southern U.S. My room temperature never gets all that high...because my house has 4 AC units. :). Whereas the folks I talk to in UK seem not to have AC and thus are more subject to the bad heat waves?
 

ziggy

Active Member
Neither here nor there, really, but I've always found it interesting that in a lot of ways our UK friends seem to have more trouble with heat than me when I live in the southern U.S. My room temperature never gets all that high...because my house has 4 AC units. :). Whereas the folks I talk to in UK seem not to have AC and thus are more subject to the bad heat waves?
yes, and there's the relative humidity factor as well. With no AC the higher temperature have higher relative humidity which result in much less evaporative cooling with the fans. With AC the humidity is less so the cooling fans produce a greater cooling effect onto the water as a result of evaporation
 

xCry0x

New Member
Fortunately summer is coming to an end so I have some time to get a chiller - I do plan to get one but I also plan to do one via bargain shopping used goods =)

I told myself that when I upgraded tanks I would buy as much stuff second hand/from fellow reefers as I could.

Have my eye out for a JBJ 1/0 hp chiller, have seen some sell in the past few months for in the $250 used ball park, hard time stomaching $560 used.

I did evaporative cooling on my nano for years -- during summer would run a small fan across the surface. The evap was fairly nuts though, would go through about 1g of topoff a day =)

I fixed the fan alignment and it made a large difference, as expected. The air getting pulled into the back is room temp now as opposed to t5-heated air. Tank is topping out at 82* now - of course, again, long term chiller would be great to keep the temps more stable.

Also realizing I am going to need to up the heater, the 200w heater with the thing does not seem to cut it.

Anyway going to go start a build thread, got a new phone with a new camera so I can take pictures finally =)
 

Pat24601

Well-Known Member
Fortunately summer is coming to an end so I have some time to get a chiller - I do plan to get one but I also plan to do one via bargain shopping used goods =)

I told myself that when I upgraded tanks I would buy as much stuff second hand/from fellow reefers as I could.

Have my eye out for a JBJ 1/0 hp chiller, have seen some sell in the past few months for in the $250 used ball park, hard time stomaching $560 used.

I did evaporative cooling on my nano for years -- during summer would run a small fan across the surface. The evap was fairly nuts though, would go through about 1g of topoff a day =)

I fixed the fan alignment and it made a large difference, as expected. The air getting pulled into the back is room temp now as opposed to t5-heated air. Tank is topping out at 82* now - of course, again, long term chiller would be great to keep the temps more stable.

Also realizing I am going to need to up the heater, the 200w heater with the thing does not seem to cut it.

Anyway going to go start a build thread, got a new phone with a new camera so I can take pictures finally =)

Looking forward to pics!
 
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