Tank stays hot

[Wolfusa]

Hi all...

I dont know if this is a problem or not but I just want to get some thoughts on it.

My tank has been running for a month now and everything is going good. My concern is the temp. of the tank. Ever since I set it up I set the 3-300 watt thermos @ 79 F. I set the chiller to kick in @ 80F. I have 4-4" fans always running when lights come on. My chiller seems to kick on allot. I have tried to get the temp to drop below 79 but I cant. The room the tank is in got down to 62 the other day and I left the fans on, on pupose to see if I could drop the temp. but it didnt.

Now I do have the fireplace and the ceiling fans running, but no matter what I do I have yet to see the temp below 79. I am just woundering what this summer has instore for me...I have checked the water temp with differant thermometers and it says 79...

Any thoughts...

Mike

[Reefmiester]

If your heaters are set at 79* it would not go lower than the set temp, or am I missing something?

I preferred for my tank to run a little warmer than you are. I set the chiller to come on at 82* and shut off at 81*. My heaters came on at 80* and shut off at 81*. So 81* was my base target temp.

[Wolfusa]

Hi Reef...

Always a pleasure to hear from you....

I should of made it a little clearer....I turned down the thermos so I could get the temp to drop because the chiller keeps coming on...

[BoomerD]

79 is a great temp. Yes, it could be cooler, but it's right in the middle of the desired range. Stable temps are more important than a certain temp (as long as it's not TOO high).

[Reefmiester]

Boomer is right. With all the lighting I had and the enclosed canopy design, if I set mine at 79* my chiller would be on most of the day. Thus I kept it at 81*.

[tacocat]

Keeping the ballasts under the stand doesn't help either. I would lower the themos (what is that BTW) of the heaters to 77 to see what happens. Are you using a controller of some sort? Most aqua-logic type controllers that display temperature as complete integers (no decimals) recommend a minimum 2 degree difference for heating and cooling relay points. For example, the heaters would come on at 78 degrees, while the chiller comes on at 80 degrees.

[Wolfusa]

Thanks Tacocat...

Under the watchful eye of reefmiester, he brought to my attention the possability of some serious damage with those ballasts under the tank...so I moved them to the top of the canopy. Yes they were putting off some heat where they were. At one point in my adventure here I had the heaters all off...turned to 0 and the temp never went below 79*

Thats why I decided to ask this question. You are correct in your thought about the 2* relay points. I am trying to set this tank up as a reef tank but I do have a couple of fish.

So if I set the heaters at say 80* and have the chiller kick on at 82* (the 2 point relay) will this be safe to do?

Thanks

[Wolfusa]

Thanks BoomerD for your thoughts...Stable is what I want...I think if I turn up the chiller a little bit and let the heat rise a little more this might keep the chiller from coming on so much...

[BoomerD]

80 and 82 should be fine. I always wished I could get my tank to run that cool!

[Saltybob]

I would look into a single 2 stage controller to controll both heater and fans by the same unit.

[Reefmiester]

Hey Bob. You have a point there. My tank was ran off an Aquacontroller, so the temp settings were pretty precise. Alan, it could be that your heater settings are overshooting your preset temp and in the process kicking your chiller on. Sometimes heaters thermostats can be off some. I found this out on my Ebos when I took them off the AQII. I set them for 81*, but they did not actually shut off until my tank was 82*. You can either put them on a separate controller and temp probe or do as Tacocat said and turn them down some.

[westwood]

you know i did the same thing once when i first started ...

I found out it was the thermoiter i now have 2 per tank and 1 of those is a floating the other is on the bottom sand bed ....


Good luck Wold your avatar looks just like a wold i got in alaska .. Smiles Tammy

[jshmehr]

Mike,
Like Reefmiester said, if the Heaters are set at 79* your tank should NEVER go below ~78* (or whatever temp the circuitry in the heaters turns them on at--this is usually 1* to 2*). So if you set your heaters @79*, you shouldn't expect the tank temp to drop below ~78/79.

Although, I think you are trying to say, that the chiller is kicking-on way too much considering the room temp & the ventilation you have.

A few questions:

What kind of heaters?
Submursible, right?
How big is your Tank?
Sump?

With the temp outside your tank at 62*, fans & chiller both running, and my similar experiences, my attention is Immediately drawn to your heaters:

In my experience, even though the Submursible heaters are 'preset' there is a little 'play' between what is printed on the heater and the temp the built-in thermostat inside the heater is actually set.

1 controller for both heaters & Chiller is definately the BEST way to go, but if you're just starting out, that can be a big investment.

I suspect, you have 1 rouge heater who is set at 79* but is running to 81*-ish. When I set-up my tanks, I usually begin by calibrating my heaters while WATCHING the little neon lamps which indicates ON or OFF (Heating or not). At the same time watching a DIGITAL thermometer which monitors the ACTUAL water temp.

This way I can ensure that all the heaters turn on and off at relitively the same temps.

I've had SEVERAL submursible heaters that began to misbehave. Upon closer inspection, I saw little water dropplets INSIDE the glass tube! Somehow a little water had gotton in. This was throwing-off the accuracy of the heater.

Now, all I use are Titanium Heaters which require seperate controllers. So far, no more problems.

[weatherson]

Do these heaters have light indicators that are on when the heater is active? If so, it should be easy enough to determine if one or more heaters are not acting according to the set temperature. Some (EboJager) have the ability to be manually adjusted the turn on point according to the indexed temp markings. If there is no indicator on your heaters, a Kill-a-watt meter would do the job for the initial calibration along with a quality thermometer to verify the tank water temp.

Josh,
There have been some titanium heaters that are somewhat less than true titanium and have a tendency to corrode. You may want to keep an eye on them but hopefully yours won't have this issue.

[TimB]

Josh,

I have to agree with Joe on the Titanium Heaters, I had a Won Brothers for 11 months and the controller went out on it, fortunatly it was during the summer so it wasn't coming on. Here is a good thread about these heaters.

http://www.cvreefers.org/showthread.php?t=1219

Tim

[Wolfusa]

Thanks for the comments...The heaters I have are by All-Glass Aquarium. They all have a little light that come on when they kick in and go off. It doesnt say what model they are but they look heavy duty.

I have at one point just turned the heaters off complety to see if the temp would go down. Like I said before I have three of them in this 300 gal tank...well in the sump tank. I am still playing with this. I have tried to leave the fire place off and keep the room a constant 68-70*. I put the chiller to kick on at 81*. So far the tank temp is staying at 80* and chiller has come on less than it has been.

I am leaning to the fact that these lights must really warm the water up and this being such a large volume of water, it never gets a chance to cool down before the lights come back on.

Let me ask if I may, I have the lights come on at 2pm and go off at 1 am. Can this time period be cut down any? I have read lights need to be on 10-12 hrs.

Thanks again for all the thoughts...

Tammy...Glad you like the picture...that wolf looked just like my first one I had too. She was 18 when I had to put here down. She was the best and smartest animal I have ever had. THe one I have now is all white with sky blue eyes. As luck would have it shes another great & loving gental animal.

[weatherson]

If your room continuously gets down to 62 and the tank isn't dropping in temp even after the end of the lights off cycle, something is definitely odd. On its own, without the chiller and heaters, the tank should start dropping degrees by the hour. If this is the case now, you'll be dealing with some serious issues come summer.

I think you will be fine dropping your lighting period down to 8 to 10 hours. But, if the issue is strictly caused by your lighting, you may have to look into some better means of diverting the heat they put off away from the water surface. Either a guard, more air movement, further distance or all of the above.

[Wolfusa]

Joe;

Thanks for the thoughts...This is my point of concern exactly...this summer I will have to take out a loan just for the PG&E...

My lights are exactly 10" from bulb to water. I have the 4 fans on top blowing down inside the case. I had a solid back canopy but I since have cut a section of the back out thinking this would solve my problem...I am probably going to add some more fans.

Keep ya posted

Mike

[westwood]

You guys are going to Hate me

with the plants and the birds i keep my house Pretty warm ..
all my tanks stay at 79 None of them have heaters in them .

Runs and hides ...

Wolf i think all wolfs are gentel creatures ... ive not come accrossed one Tame or wild that wasnt yet ..Tammy

[Wolfusa]

Hi Tammy...

79*...thats the magic number hehehehe... from the way things are going here I think the 3 heaters I got I can get rid of them...hey I got an idea...want to buy a used heater...hehehe

Mike

[weatherson]

Another possibility, albeit somewhat costly, would be to convert to DE pendants mounted to the top of your canopy with the fixture above. Basically, they fire their light through a rectangular hole in the top panel of the canopy. Whodah's tank is lighted this way. I would think that this orientation would keep much more of the heat created by the lights away from the water. Something to consider. Maybe someday Jeremy will take a photo of this to show everyone.

[westwood]

UM Wolfy Grins i think my New titanium ones wont Under stand if i use .. Used heaters ....

Im going to have them in my 80 g for sure the tanks here are all 30 and 20 longs its easy to keep them at that temp...

thats in the Extra room .. the 80 will be out in the dinning room where i can Eat Salmon and threaten my tank fish .. this is what happened to the last one that got sick ...

HEHEHEHE tammy