Got fans?

[jcook54]

I was fortunate enough to get a new lighting setup on my frag system and I noticed that the tank temperatures are up a degree or two. Right now the temp will run up to 79.7° before the light kick off at the end of the day and that's higher than I'd like. I know fans are quite (surprisingly) effective and lowering the temp thanks to evaporative cooling and placed a box fan next to the tank to see what it would do. After a few hours the tank temp is down to 78.8° so it looks like I'm going to be adding a fan to the setup. I've used a number of different fans in the past and I'm wondering what you guys would recommend. Has anyone tried an official 'aquarium fan' that are offered or should I just stick with a clip on and make it work? Aquamed has a pretty cool one that mounts on the side of the tank and is pretty low profile but it's $30. I don't mind spending the money but all of the fans I've used in the past only work for a season or two before breaking and I'm curious if these application specific fans hold up any better.

 

[Rickdareefa]

Ive heard the "official" aquarium fans are junk. Ive had decent experiences with the cheap amazon clip on fans. Of course the dont look as cool and can be a lil bulky. But they do the trick. Aside from a chiller which i refuse to resort to. They draw too many amps

 

[Trizzino]

I was fortunate enough to get a new lighting setup on my frag system and I noticed that the tank temperatures are up a degree or two. Right now the temp will run up to 79.7° before the light kick off at the end of the day and that's higher than I'd like. I know fans are quite (surprisingly) effective and lowering the temp thanks to evaporative cooling and placed a box fan next to the tank to see what it would do. After a few hours the tank temp is down to 78.8° so it looks like I'm going to be adding a fan to the setup. I've used a number of different fans in the past and I'm wondering what you guys would recommend. Has anyone tried an official 'aquarium fan' that are offered or should I just stick with a clip on and make it work? Aquamed has a pretty cool one that mounts on the side of the tank and is pretty low profile but it's $30. I don't mind spending the money but all of the fans I've used in the past only work for a season or two before breaking and I'm curious if these application specific fans hold up any better.

Just curious why are you not comfortable with 79.7?

 

[Primereddime]

These are from aqua world and have worked well for the last year. I've got them hooked up with an inkbird backed up by the reefkeeper elite. Only problem I've had was one of them started making a noise so I pulled it was a 4 pack

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

 

[Adam]

Just curious why are you not comfortable with 79.7?

I can't speak for Justin, but I do know he doesn't have a controller.

For me I like to keep my tanks at 78 and fans or chiller turn on at 79. The reasoning is three fold.
1) The warmer water gets the less dissolved oxygen it holds.
2) The higher the temp the higher the respiration of all organisms in the tank. (This can be an issue because of #1. It also means more waste from the fish.)
3) It gives me more time to react if there's a problem.

@jcook54
These are the fans I got from Fry's, but like I said the Gwinnett store closed. I like them because I can ziptie them up and away from the water.

Amazon.com

 

[jcook54]

Just curious why are you not comfortable with 79.7?

I've got a few reasons. First, I do like running things a little cooler than that for the reasons Adam mentions. Second, this tank is in the basement and the water temp will drop to 77° overnight and I'd like to try and limit that 2° swing if I can. Finally, I've got he Inkbird controller and it has a outlet for "cooling" and I just want to play with it. This certainly isn't an emergency situation as I believe higher temps aren't a huge deal as long as they're consistent. In the past I would try to limit the swings but adding .5° to the controller and raising the bottom end so there would only be a 1 degree shift but I don't want to try that on a tank that isn't in a conditioned space. There's no AC in the basement and my concern is that the highest daily temp might go well over 80° if I were to raise the bottom end temp.

 

[Trizzino]

I can't speak for Justin, but I do know he doesn't have a controller.

For me I like to keep my tanks at 78 and fans or chiller turn on at 79. The reasoning is three fold.
1) The warmer water gets the less dissolved oxygen it holds.
2) The higher the temp the higher the respiration of all organisms in the tank. (This can be an issue because of #1. It also means more waste from the fish.)
3) It gives me more time to react if there's a problem.

@jcook54
These are the fans I got from Fry's, but like I said the Gwinnett store closed. I like them because I can ziptie them up and away from the water.

Amazon.com

I knew the less time to react piece. Didn't know how much of an impact a degree or two while still in the acceptable range for reefs would have on livestock. Normally I have my Apex set for On at 77 and Off at 78. During the new tank uglies i got Dino's and slowly raised the temp to 81 for about two weeks to get rid of them. Some say raise to 84, I wasn't comfortable so I did 81 and observed. It worked and I didn't see any noticeable implications to my livestock when my water was consistently that warm. I know in shallow reefs temp swings are normal and I believe in consistency over one set temp. Now that the tank is back to normal temps, I'll normally see 1.5 degree swing daily.

 

[Adam]

I knew the less time to react piece. Didn't know how much of an impact a degree or two while still in the acceptable range for reefs would have on livestock. Normally I have my Apex set for On at 77 and Off at 78. During the new tank uglies i got Dino's and slowly raised the temp to 81 for about two weeks to get rid of them. Some say raise to 84, I wasn't comfortable so I did 81 and observed. It worked and I didn't see any noticeable implications to my livestock when my water was consistently that warm. I know in shallow reefs temp swings are normal and I believe in consistency over one set temp. Now that the tank is back to normal temps, I'll normally see 1.5 degree swing daily.

I know the DO saturation info from Striper fishing. Probably doesn't have too huge effect on most aquarists except those that have larger fish. That's why when there's an event that negatively effects DO the big fish die 1st. As the temp goes up the respiration does too but there's not enough DO so they suffocate.

 

[bg2311]

Noctua makes great PC fans. They move a lot of air and are quiet. We setup 3 of them in a row blowing across the length of the top of the tank on a 1x2 strip of wood. They were connected to a cheap temp controller ($10 on Amazon). Would recommend an Inkbird instead. We use the WiFi model for heating control. This year we have the AC set lower so didn't need fans but about to upgrade our lighting so we'll probably need a similar cooling solution very soon.

 

[lmm1967]

I believe our animals become accustomed to our stability and are impacted more greatly by minor swings.

Our toadfish for instance - these things live in the wild from Chesapeake bay to southern Florida - and in somewhat harsh conditions such as along breakwater walls and such. In the wild - they are tough!

Ours was almost unable to handle being in a 120 gallon aquarium with no flow and dropping temps for 4 hours. Temp only dropped from 77 down to 73 and the flow was off for about 4 hours. The toadfish was the only animal in that tank. Nothing extreme happened except a temp drop well within his normal environmental parameters - and I'm sure a drop in dissolved O2 - but at the end of the 4 hour power outage I was seriously concerned we would lose him. He lost most of his color, was listless in his hiding spot and breathing very heavy. Took him 12 hours to return to normal.

I also believe that is partially why some people report different experiences with seemingly similar animals - a temp swing of 3 or 4 degrees for one tank could spell semi disaster for animals in another tank. Especially with factors we can't or don't measure such as DO.