12g dx heat issues

[wantsalotta]

I have had a nano dx for a month now...the lights on lid closed temp shot up to 87 last week. The tank is at my wife's office, and she did not inform me of it until the second day. I lost a very nice torchspawn a candy and a small blasto. I had her prop the lid partially open and float ice bottles the next day to bring temp down.

 

I have since replaced my pump...still too hot and jbj is in the process of sending me a replacement that is supposed to run cooler.

 

My solution for right now is that I have installed a larger cpu fan that i robbed from the canopy of one of my home reefs. this was still not satisfactory...~83.5 in ambients of 72. I then removed the clear plastic cover over the lights and fans....hey whadda ya know, It runs at 76 degrees after a 12 hour photoperiod.

 

My question is, anyone else out there running no cover over thier lights/ how does it work for you...all of my other tanks are open topped to aide evap and cooling, but the distance from water to lights is much greater. salt builup will not bother me as long as i don't run into short to ground issues...I can wipe off salt creep when i go maintain the tank for her. any thoughts are welcomed

Brian

[mdrumm]

Get the ICA from nanocustoms.com. should take care of heat issues.

[evolution8888]

If it was running fine and now it is an issue, could it be a runaway heater, busted fan?

[Micro-Reefs Aquariums]

Brian,

 

I've played a lot with ICA units; I own two of them. I have two 12 gallon cubes and have up-graded lights...

 

First of all, the cube stock out of the box is a bad design in terms of heat dissapation. Heat gets trapped in the tank, between the splashguard and the surface of the water.

 

This heat becomes stagnant and transfers into the water through conduction. End result is a hot cube by the end of the day.

 

To solve this problem the ICA removes this energy out of the tank, thus holding down the temp from rising too high. It doesn't perform like a true chiller, but then again, it's not designd to.

 

If fact it has a good price tag for what it does.

 

Early testing, I've had some very good results with it but I'm continuing to test it; as we are entering a hot summer.

 

I need to state that it will hold your tank up to 3 degrees cooler than ambient. And that is why it's not a true chiller. It doesn't have the capacity to keep the tank at a constant temp, say 77 degrees; thats the job of a chiller.

 

The ICA unit, like I mentioned earlier will be at least 3 degrees below ambient; so is this good?

 

Sure, because if you can keep you house temp at a comfortable rate, the ICA will do the rest.

 

I'm a high end user and have a lot of wattage in my hoods; so I need any cooling to assist me.

 

My condo hit 90 degrees the last couple days; the ICA unit kept my living room cube at 86 degrees, while my bedroom runs cooler, my second tank was at 84 degrees.

 

This clearly shows that the ICA unit works and works good even for a power monger like myself.

 

My corals and fish have had no trouble with these high temps recently since in the wild, they will come across these extremes at least once in a twelve month cycle.

 

Gradual climb is acceptable in temp variation but sudden temps that go up or down, are bad and will kill your livestock.

 

Like I said, there is still testing that is being seen with these units; but so far so good.

 

I did pay for an assist on chilling, not a true chiller....

 

Mike Guerrero