Ed-N Posted March 26, 2005 Share Posted March 26, 2005 Thanks for the info. Just to clarify, I meant the outside of the tank so no saltwater would touch it. The main thing I'd be worried about is cracking. Link to comment
artarmon42 Posted March 26, 2005 Author Share Posted March 26, 2005 Glad to have you looking into the thread jmt! You da man when it comes to MH! I bought a Seio MH620 to replace my Rio 50 + Rio 90 (hoping to reduce other sources of heat). Now I'm getting more flow for less heat, and my evening photo period seems to be increasing in heat slightly less. Might just be the evening, but my house is pretty constant in temperature (have small kids). The only problem is that the Seio is too big to fit in the back chambers (misssed by less than an inch), so I have this huge honking thing in my display chamber I'll take and post a picture tomorrow (the massive flow knocked off some frags and I'm too lazy to fix it right now). Link to comment
artarmon42 Posted March 26, 2005 Author Share Posted March 26, 2005 I started a new thread that discusses the Iceprobe chiller... http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/showthread...&threadid=53942 Will keep updating the MH process on this thread. Link to comment
artarmon42 Posted March 26, 2005 Author Share Posted March 26, 2005 Perhaps jmt or another smart person can answer this one for me... How much hotter is a 150W MH (compared to a 70W)? From a heat dissipation point of view, is it double? Link to comment
ccjung Posted March 26, 2005 Share Posted March 26, 2005 The heat will be double in a more roughly the same amount of space (arc area). Link to comment
SeanCallan Posted March 26, 2005 Share Posted March 26, 2005 I'm not sure I'm one of those smart people you're looking for, but have experience with SPS and therefore MHs in a larger aquarium setting. I found then when you go from 250w MH to a 400w, you double PLUS some, the amount of heat produced. I would think the same with 70w to 150w. Granted, I'd love to have 150w MH in my nano hood I was considering leaving my hood off for now and just hanging my new 250w MH pendant over it, but I can't deal with the heat. Link to comment
artarmon42 Posted March 26, 2005 Author Share Posted March 26, 2005 OK you guys have forced me into it... After I finish the chiller, I'm going to have to "kick it up a notch" and go for 150W in a 12G DX Link to comment
SeanCallan Posted March 26, 2005 Share Posted March 26, 2005 This will be interesting You might even burn some of your softies with a 150w MH that close to them, usually it's recommended to have your MHs 6'' off the water especially when you cross 100w. It'll be interesting to see how you retrofit all that into the hood, I'm looking into the 70w. Link to comment
SeanCallan Posted March 26, 2005 Share Posted March 26, 2005 I don't have any scrollfans around to compare, but do you think it's possible to mount them 2 tall so you have 4 scroll fans running? Just an idea.. Link to comment
artarmon42 Posted March 27, 2005 Author Share Posted March 27, 2005 Sean, It'll be "difficult" to mount them one on top of another. By design they suck air in from the "top" and blow it out the side. If you were to stack them, the bottom one won't have any way to get air in... But you can buy "normal" height scroll fans that are double to triple the height of the one I used. Link to comment
artarmon42 Posted March 27, 2005 Author Share Posted March 27, 2005 As previously mentioned, while I like mikeg's idea of putting the 2 power heads in the left chamber, I found that it was generating too much heat with the extra powerheads. On Friday, I picked up a Seio M620 (http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_powerh...eio.asp?CartId=). 620gph at 8W. Let me say, this thing rocks! If it fit it in the back chamber, I'd need no other water movement device. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit in the back of a 12G so I'll still need to one powerhead in the back drive water movement otherwise things will start dying back there Anyway, here's a picture of the Seio (yeah it's a little big, yeah it casts a big shadow, but boy does it move water ) In case you're wondering why bother? Well, now that I got MH I invested in SPS. With SPS, I need more water flow. Not for everyone obviously : Link to comment
SeanCallan Posted March 27, 2005 Share Posted March 27, 2005 Yeah definitely a big pump Do you think it's important to double the size of the scrollfans or are you confident there's no need? I just replaced my old pump with an extra maxijet 1200, 295gph does a decent job of moving some water around. I would eventually love to increase to flow to keep SPS, but for now this tank is my Ric/Yuma breeding tank. Gotta have somewhere to make my new cubes "carpet". Anyways, I sent you a PM, check it and let me know Link to comment
artarmon42 Posted March 27, 2005 Author Share Posted March 27, 2005 I'm not sure you need to double the scrollfans. My 2 running at 7.5W is enough for now (might need to jack it up come summer). Incidentally, I now run my 4 internal fans on 2 different adapters for "redudancy" Link to comment
artarmon42 Posted March 28, 2005 Author Share Posted March 28, 2005 Update on the temperature situation... With an ambient of 73, this evening's 5 hour photo period raised the temperature from 79 to 82. The 3 degree increase was pretty good because I had the front flap prop'd up by an inch. With the flap closed, it was doing about 1 deegree every hour. I attribute the cooling to the heat dissipation of the air between the splashguard and water, and any normal cooling of water through evaporation. Water level did not drop noticeably (not enough to make me want to top it up). I will leave the flap slightly open through the night and check on the water level again tomorrow. Based on Chronicle's suggestions (of increasing airflow on the Iceprobe thread) I've ordered some higher CFM fans to replace all the fans that I have in the hood right now. Will journal that work when the order arrives. Also ordered a new splashguard (amongst other things) from Chris/Nanocustoms. Looking forward to the V2.0 of this MH experiment. Link to comment
SeanCallan Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 If you could somehow mount a scroll fan on the flag to suck air from off the water surface and push it out the front, you may manage to keep those "fine lines" and still cool your tank. Just an idea. Link to comment
artarmon42 Posted March 28, 2005 Author Share Posted March 28, 2005 But I don't want to open up the front flap Yup, like my mother says, "blah blah blah, always what you want" Link to comment
SeanCallan Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 No, I'm saying something that can push air through the cracks. That way you don't have to have the flap open. It makes sense in my head Link to comment
artarmon42 Posted March 28, 2005 Author Share Posted March 28, 2005 We'll see when the fans come in Link to comment
artarmon42 Posted March 31, 2005 Author Share Posted March 31, 2005 No major updates. Waiting for the fans to arrive, but Nexfan just shipped it (ground), so perhaps next week But I have made some observations in the mean time... Over the last few days I have found that (with the front flap propped up) the temp goes up consistently goes up ~3 degrees in the 5 hour photo period. So that looks like a consistent increase, reasonably regardless of my ambient which has ranged from 72 to 78. In the last two day, I've been tweaking my fan settings. My findings have been that increasing the voltage (and consequently the speed) of the rear (intake) fans have dramatically lowered the temperature of the side exhausts. Almost to the point of room-temperature air. The only logical reason is that while the side exhausts work, it wasn't getting enough cool air into the light/splashguard area. The interesting finding is that when the side exhausts are near room-temperature (which I take to mean that the splashguard area is cooled sufficiently), the water temperatures only seem to go up ~2 degrees over a 5 hour photo period. It would seem that an insufficiently cooled splashguard area contributes ~1 degree to the overall system (guess that makes sense, as a hot splashguard which is <1.5 inches from the water surface would affect the water temperature). It would also seem that a 70W MH 2-3 inches from the water surface will have a noticeable (~2 degrees) affect on the water (which also makes sense obviously). Taking that into account, plus the fact that the ambient temperature is providing a cooling effect (which may not happen in summer), plus the fact that I want to keep the flap closed, it is clear to me that a chiller is definitely required to run a MH in a Nano Cube. Link to comment
jmt Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 Why is there a seio in your nanocube? I understand your want for more water movement, but the seio is just a waste of resources. They need a good bit of space to actually "fan" out the water flow to reap the full benefit. That space will definately not be found in a Nano Cube. Not to mention their size. There are smaller, more effecient pumps that would do better in that setting. Link to comment
artarmon42 Posted March 31, 2005 Author Share Posted March 31, 2005 I put it back into it's "normal" setup (upright, with that 90 degree connector), and now uses slightly less space. I had originally thought that 600gph at 8W to be a great deal, removing somewhere around 10W of MJ/Rio's for more flow. After buying it, I realized that I couldn't get away without a powerhead in the back (to create flow in the back chambers), and thus when I put the MJ back in there was now actually more than 10W (11-12W by simple maths). As for diffusion, it actually spreads water reasonably well. By the time it hits the front glass, the flow is reasonable (compared to a 600gph powerhead) and then further diffuses along all directions of the glass. External pumps (which I like in theory because they would not directly introduce heat to the water) is not an option as I want the Cube to be self contained. What more efficient pumps would you recommend? Link to comment
jmt Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 Of course it's going to diffuse flow when it hits the glass. All pumps do. True self containment is not going to be found with a Nano Cube. Sorry guys. However, I understand the sleek, all in a box concept that is trying to be achieved. True, SPS crave flow, but IMO you would be better off with chaotic flow pattern rather than constant, powerful one. I would try putting pumps in the back and using a wave timer. My thought would be 3 MJ 606's. Two on a wave timer and one for constant surface agitation. But, since I don't own a Nano Cube, I don't know if that is exactly do-able. I personally have ~250gph going through my 12x12x12 cube and there are no dead spots and decent surface agitation does exist. Link to comment
audiocontrol Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 how long has that nano been running? Link to comment
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