Controlling Temperature

[CharlieHustle]

Hi RS,

As some of you may know I experienced a water temperature related crisis about 2 weeks ago. I have an Aquapod 24 and unfortunately it got up over 92*. Killed my frogspawn, open brain and my acans :-(. When I got home from work it was too late.

Since then I have purchased an AC unit for my apartment. The inside air temp is between 72-75 constantly. I can't however get the temp to go below 80*. I have two glass thermometers and a digital. My Tank temp is about 78 with lights off and about 82-84 with lights on. I would like to have it in the mid 70s so I have some wiggle room.

I have turned my heater, ebo jager, down to 72 and the only other electrical i have in the tank is a koralia nano powerhead, protein skimmer and the stock pump.

What may be keeping the temp up? The pumps? Does the air temp need to be lower?

Would upgrading to the maxijet 1200 help reduce the heat from my return pumps?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am pretty stumped. And until I solve this problem I will be stock piling frozen RO waterbottles.

Thanks

 

[jgking21]

I don't know anything about Aquapods, but I'm battling a high temp also. Do you have a sump on the tank? I've been moving the thermometers all around trying to find hot spots. I found that it was my sump at was staying around 82.

 

[csmsss]

I have a few ideas. First, what lighting system are you using? If it's not affixed to your tank, are you able to raise it away from the surface of the water? Second, consider shortening your lighting cycle so that the water isn't absorbing so much heat. Third, think about doing whatever you can to maximize the turbulence at the top of the tank. That should help increase the evaporation rate, which has a fortunate side effect of lowering the water temperature (basically the swamp cooler concept). A last resort might be to lower your room temperature.

 

[CharlieHustle]

I am using the stock hood with PC lighting. So its built to be pretty close to the water level to give it a sleek all in one look.

I am going to try and move the built in return nozzles higher to get more turbulence now and shorten my light cycle. Gonna cut down from about 9 hrs of daylight and 11 hrs of actinic to 7 and 9 and see if that brings about the desired effect.

Thanks for the input.

 

[ReefLady]

Just FYI you don't want the temp in the mid 70's. I'd say 77 at the bare minimum, but 79-80 is where you want to be. Do you have any cooling fans that come on when the lights are on? For fans to be most effective, their aim should be angled at the water's surface, to induce evaporative cooling.

More important than temp is temp fluctuation. You don't want more than 2-3 degress swing per day, max.