[Ninjabike41]

They question i have is this i have a 135g tank with 4 48'' vho bulbs on a icecap 660 and i have 2 400watt mh lamps running also an my water temp is a steady 78 when the mh are not on but when they are it increases about 1 degree per hr. My canopy is 72'' long by 15'' high with 4 12'' wide doors on the front. As of now i am keeping my front doors open to let the hott air out so the temp stay lowwer. I am going to buy a chiller within a week or so and i wanted to know if it would be ok if i install the chiller and never put any type of vent or fan in my canopy? is that ok? And will that be to hott inside of the canopy for the mh and will it cause a fire at all? thanks please help im trying to not have any light come out of the canopy anywhere.


thanks isaac

[jsgates]

Unless you just have the money to throw at a chiller, I'd try my solution first. I have an 80 ga tank with plastic canopy. I have built a wooden frame into the canopy and mounted a Icecap VHO T5 light kit w/ 660 ballast. No halides for me. Anyway, with the T5s on, my temps have gotten as high as 84 degrees, but stayed around 82. With no lights on for two days, my water temp is 77 degrees, which is very good. I have installed 3 fans in my canopy to cool things down. Computer fans are the way to go. I installed 1 120mm fan in the back of the canopy to pull the hot air out, and two 80 mm fans (one and each end of the inside of the canopy to blow across the water surface. I just got this all wired up tonight and will be monitoring temps over the weekend. If you would like to see pics of this setup, let me know and I will post some up. The fans are very quiet, can't hear them at all. I used Dynex brand fans from Best Buy. You will need some wire, the fans, and a AC to DC power convert from Radio shack. I can post the model # of the one I used if it will help. It looks just like an AC adapter, but it converts AC to 12v DC power (what the fans use). You can wire them up with just electrical tape, but I soldered my wires together before wrapping in electrical tape. I plan to post a guide here if this project proves to successfully lower my water temp. I have heard several other people here have had great luck installing fans. I'd do the fans first & see what your temps look like......it might just save you $700 on that chiller.

Forgot to mention.......don't get fans with variable speed switches.....that will make things harder. Just get the basic PC case fans without the LEDs. Should have 3 wires: red, black, white. You will not use the white wire. Red is positive & black is negative......and the if you use a Radioshack brand AC to DC converter, the wire with the broken dashed line is positive & solid white wire is negative (this is not documented).