How to Lower Temperature without chiller

[OrangetheClownfish]

Any tips on how to lower tank temperature without a chiller?

[Guest]

You can use fan, my 5ft tank is using fan, there's high evaporation rate however.


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[skyjuice123]

Can construct a cooling tower using plastic sheets to form a standing rectangular box of 10"x10" and about 4 ft tall,  then run water through the tower, allowing water to form a "rain shower" within the rectangular box.  On the top,  run an extracting fan to cool the cooling tower.  Can allow water to 'rain" through filter media to form the dry filter.   Use this set up before to cool a 4 ft reef tank for about 2 years without problem.

[Harlequinmania]

Can construct a cooling tower using plastic sheets to form a standing rectangular box of 10"x10" and about 4 ft tall,  then run water through the tower, allowing water to form a "rain shower" within the rectangular box.  On the top,  run an extracting fan to cool the cooling tower.  Can allow water to 'rain" through filter media to form the dry filter.   Use this set up before to cool a 4 ft reef tank for about 2 years without problem.

Do you have a photo that can share with us ? Very interested to known how it will look like

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[skyjuice123]

I have retired the cooling tower a long time ago.  The following sketch will give some idea on how to construct the cooling tower which was located at the back of the reef tank with a pump sump below the tank.  

 

The tower was about 4 feet tall and filled with loose packed dry media made from flatten twine string that has gaps to  allow air to pass through them.  

 

 

Water is fed through the top section using 2 Nos of 20 mm U shape plastic tube and overflow reservoirs without drilling any hole in the reef tank.  The water is then allow to go through the rain shower plate,  which is basically a plastic sheet full of small holes.

I used the setup for about 2 years without any other filters although I stored some dead corals inside the pump sump.    The set up can cool the water only to 27 C which is the wet bulb temperature of our ambient air.  Constant feed of light  Limewater and kalkwasser is all that is necessary to replenish lost water..

[skyjuice123]

I have blogged about the detail and construction of the cooling tower as shown here

http://skyjuiceiswater.blogspot.sg/2017/03/lower-reef-tank-temperature-without.html

[Harlequinmania]

Thanks for sharing.. very interesting concept

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