duckhuntboy Posted April 29, 2003 Share Posted April 29, 2003 Hey Kenny. Your setup looks good, and since you've packed as much lighting as you can in there, I would say you dont need a ballast. It depends on where the lights are touching the plastic. You could try to wedge a piece of sheet metal in there just to protect the plastic, some of that really thin stuff you can cut with a scissors. What I would do, is drill a bunch of holes in the top of your hood, so you can get some air flow in there, run your tank full of fresh water, with the lights on all day, and see if you have heating problems. Another question: Do you run air conditioning in your house year-round? Lots of people mount the fan on the outside of the hood, usually on the side. You dont need to fit it inside your hood, and if you buy a little black fan, it doesnt look that bad. I'm impressed with how good your hood is looking. Just run the freshwater test, and see how hot your tank gets, and go from there. If your AC ever goes out, you could just leave your lights off until you get it fixed or whatnot. Looks great otherwise! Link to comment
southpaw23 Posted April 30, 2003 Author Share Posted April 30, 2003 Thanx Kyle.....as for the packed lighting conditions, i'm assuming that you meant that i wouldn't be needing the reflector and not the ballast right? And to give you an idea of where the point of contact is between the bulb and the plastic, if you take a look at the last pic, there is a tube of plastic running inbetween both the bulbs (just next to the PC holders) and it's there to connect the splash guards to the hood. Because the bulbs are much wider than NO's, there doesn't leave much room for the tube to run inbetween the two PC's thus causing the point of contact....it's looks like it's quite sturdy and don't think it would give in to the heat but i really can't say for sure.....what i'm trying to do is modify the metal casing holding the PCs a little to give the bulbs more room but that would mean i'd have to figure out a way to bend the metal neatly and not skrew up the setup ??? I guess i'll go ahead with ur suggestion on running the lights all day and see how its affecting the temperature first.....and i don't run my AC all day....only in the night....but in general the temperature in my household is pretty cool with insulation etc....but i'm concerned about the temp change at night when my lights are off and the AC is on...looks like i'll have to do some testing on that as well....worse comes to worse i'll have to relocate my tank to the living room or dining room (a little easier to do now that there's nothing in the tank yet) The fan on the outside would work....i just need to be careful when i try to put holes in the hood (probably to both sides of the hood) coz it's plastic and might break....but so you know...there are air vents at the top of the hood already....but i'm doubting that it will be suficient.....i'm also thinking of maybe putting the fans right on top of the air vents and try and suck the hot air right out of the hood.....yet again....more testing needs to be done on that as well..... I'm actually having quite a good time tryin to piece all this together....but can't wait to get to the point where i'm stocking my tank up.....i just wanna make sure i've got everything right before i dump live stock in there. Thanx again for all ur help. Whoah....long post...sorry bout that.... Link to comment
duckhuntboy Posted April 30, 2003 Share Posted April 30, 2003 Hey Kenny - Yeah, I meant reflector, not ballast I dont understand a problem with heat issues at night. On a normal basis, your lights arent on at night, AND your AC will be on at night, and your heater will do the job then. the thing I said about the holes in the hood, is when I look at the pictures, I dont see many holes in the white part of your hood, and if the holes I see are all you have, that's not sufficient. Also, the holes in the white part wont do much good if they dont allign with holes in the black part... You want air FLOW, not air seepage. I see the plastic between the lights.... Can you get away with cutting that off? Otherwise, I guess the worst that happens is you melt the plastic piece. May as well give it a shot. You dont have to be very careful mounting a fan on the outside... They have really large mounts to them, and cover up any non-perfect circle you may have cut for the fan. I used a rotary tool to cut my hole, but I dont know what other people used. Good luck Link to comment
southpaw23 Posted April 30, 2003 Author Share Posted April 30, 2003 Hey Kyle...i forgot to mention that i wasn't planning on using a heater...it's not really necesarry in my climate to heat the tank coz the temperate doesn't change much (no winter)....that's why i was worried about the AC dropping the temp too much...i guess i might just put the tank outside of my room after i've done some test to check on the potential temp drop.... That's funny bout the air seepage... Looks like i'll be hooking up the fan on both sides....now should i have one of them pushing air in while the other pulls air out or have them both pulling air out?...whatcha think?... I'll try and leave the piece of plastic be for now and see how the light and temp affects it and deal with it accordingly....worse case scenario would be to remove it and find another way to keep the splash guard in place. Gotta run....lunch awaits...catch ya later.... Link to comment
duckhuntboy Posted April 30, 2003 Share Posted April 30, 2003 Hey man. I get the no heater thing. Dont let the temperature fluctuate too much daily. I've heard of people with like 4 degree fluctuations, but nobody much more than that. One fan in and one fan out. Or one fan in, and drill some holes in the back. keep in mind for each fan you buy, you have to buy an adapter, so if it's cost you're worried about, drill some holes in the top or back, and give that a go. Link to comment
southpaw23 Posted April 30, 2003 Author Share Posted April 30, 2003 I'll do some testing on the temp fluctuations sometime this weekend to see what i'm gonna be dealing with..... As for the fan....it cant cost that much to get the fans and adapters right? (i'll check) if it doesn't cost a bomb....i think the cost shouldn't be too much of an issue for me.....will go with the 2 fans with one in and one out....as for the adapters, i think i read in another thread somewhere that one can just use a phone charger adapter to hook up to a fan, of course taking into account the right voltage or whatever....i'll find out more from the local electrician. Thanx again.... Link to comment
duckhuntboy Posted April 30, 2003 Share Posted April 30, 2003 Hey Southpaw... You can definately get a cheap adapter from many places, but some places charge like 20 bucks for an adapter, and 20 for a fan, so look out for that (like radiocrap). The fan will have the voltage printed right on the side (12 volts would be good). Any adapter 12 volts and under will power the fan - less volts would be quieter, but it wouldn't be as powerful. Link to comment
southpaw23 Posted May 5, 2003 Author Share Posted May 5, 2003 Alrite guys.....the hoods been hooked up and ran a lil test on the temp in the tank....good god i can boil my fishes with the water :x First off.....even without the lights on, the water temp remains constant at around 29-30 degrees celcius...which works out to about 85-86 degree's farenheit......and when i kept the lights on for a couple of hours....temp shot up to about 32 (hitting the 90s in farenheit) Looks like i'm gonna need to be doing some major chillin But my question is this....even if i manage to cool the hood, the regular temp of the water is still way above what's required.....hey Keng Yew...if you're reading this....how do you managed to keep ur tanks temp down....and kyle...i'm not sure if you would deal with a situation like this seeing that we're in different climates and stuff but i'm open to suggestions. Anyways....i managed to get my hands on a drill and will be plugging some major holes in the hood to assist in air flow...or seepage as you put it Kyle....the holes will probably be drilled at the top of the hood while i'll try and plug a big hole on the sides to attach the fans (i might even go with attaching a fan at the top that pulls air out of the hood)...oh and fan's arent that expensive either....went over to a computer shop to check out the cooling fans and the were pretty affordable.....but my only concern was if it was strong enough to cool the hood....they look kinda tiny....but quiet...And as for the adapters....i've checked and the phone chargers would work fine with the fans....it's output is at 12V as well....so no worries there.....i still haven't checked on the plastic between the lights yet....hopefully it didn't melt or anything.... ps. Having a little trouble with my actinic lights...it starts to flicker after a few minutes in operation....i wouldn't really call it a flicker....it's a little difficult to describe but seems to me like the bulb is faulty...it cant be the ballast as the other bulb is working fine.....i'm gonna have to change it with the LFS...only problem is the LFS is about an hour away from where i live X) Link to comment
duckhuntboy Posted May 5, 2003 Share Posted May 5, 2003 Hey man. I figured you had it all worked out First off, if your tank is at 85 with the lights off, you're going to have some serious issues.... The fans MIGHT cool the tank down a bit lower than 85 if you've got MAJOR fans going on, but you might be looking at a chiller. It sounds like your room temperature is around 85? That's pretty "iffy" dude... I've heard people cooling their tank by 5 degrees or so with fans, but thats the drop in temperature from the lights being on. Chillers are spendy, so see if you can drop your temperature enough with some serious water evaporation from some fans.... You could even try to raise your lights above the tank for a while, and use a household fan on the top of the water for a day or so (with the lights on) and see if you can get enough water evaporation to cool the tank that way.... at least you'd know it's possible. See what kengYew's got to say. Link to comment
southpaw23 Posted May 5, 2003 Author Share Posted May 5, 2003 Hey Kyle....i'm not sure if this is good news or not but i just called home and got my mother to check on the tank temp and she says that it's at 26 degrees celcius (79 farenheit)...??? Now this is with the lights off......but i didn't think that it would go down that low....weird huh?....looks like i'm going to have to do some more testing....but if this were the case and if the tank does stay at this temp throughout the day...then all i've gotta do is find a way to keep the lighting from heating up the tank and i should be set.... I'm a little concerned about the whole evaporation deal though...cos how do i know how much evaporation takes place in a day and what would the top up amount be....right now the system is a closed system so i don't expect much evaporation.....is this wise? i'll be working on drilling some airpockets into the hood to assist in the heat seepage and add a fan or two in the near future....but in the meantime....i'll have to run a couple more test on the temp fluctuations......will keep ya'll posted.... Link to comment
offsprg01 Posted May 5, 2003 Share Posted May 5, 2003 top off mark. take a sharpie and make an inconspicous mark on the corner of the tank where the top of you water line should be. fill up tank with salt water. when tank water drops below the mark just replace with ro water. Link to comment
southpaw23 Posted May 6, 2003 Author Share Posted May 6, 2003 That was easy enough.....thanx charlie...now any ideas on cooling the tank?..... i got home and found that the temp has remained at a constant 85....all night....i don't see how it got to 80 in the day....i think mother might have misread the temp.....mind you, all this is still with the lights off.... Whatever the case....i do appreciate ur help and input guys...will keep ya'll updated....later..... Link to comment
offsprg01 Posted May 6, 2003 Share Posted May 6, 2003 put it in the fridge? couldn't resist. Link to comment
duckhuntboy Posted May 6, 2003 Share Posted May 6, 2003 Hey Kenny, I dont really know what to tell you. 80 is a good temp. 85 is not a good temp. Furthermore, if the temp really did drop to 80 when your mom checked it, your tank temp shouldnt drop that far anyway, so it just wouldn't work out. It sounds like you may have to buy a chiller for the tank. You could try fans, but I just dont see them dropping the tank to 80 unless the lights are off. Do a search on chillers on this site, and you'll find some cheap ones (they are cheap for chillers, but they are still spendy!) See if it works into your budget. If not, you're going to have to move the tank to the coldest place in your house, put two powerful cooling fans on the hood, and hope for the best. You cant really test it though without buying some fans.... Link to comment
southpaw23 Posted May 7, 2003 Author Share Posted May 7, 2003 LOL U guys are funny...i'll remember that as a back up charlie.....i know i'm one big headache guys...but thanx for putting up with me though Looks like this lil project of mine is turning out to be a big one...lotsa things to work out...well, looks like i'll be fiddling around a bit in the next few weeks to see what i can come up with....will letcha know along the way how it's going....i think all ur input has been plenty helpful...just need to find a way to work around the heat around these parts now Thanx again guys.... Link to comment
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