Off season topic :

What is a good method to cool your tank water ?

Example : It is summer and my water temp is in the upper 80's-90's help .

I know you can float frozen 2-plastic bottels in the tank , It works but what a pain in the butt .

let it be known : Some fish can be keepet at heigh temp , "But some can not" .

 

Get a chiller. Use fans to blow across the surface and exhaust heat away from your tank.

 

Will a chiller maintane a specific temp or is it somthing you need to watch/keep eye on it ?

 

It will maintain the temp...as long as you get one sized to your water volume.

 

a good chiller will have a controller with it that allows you to set the desired temp. it will cycle the chiller unit on and off like your house AC unit. a really good controller with control both the chiller and the heaters.

 

Chillers may be necessary in very hot climates, but unlikely for most people. For the most part, they just use up lots of electricity. Fans pointed at the surface, for evaporation cooling should work fine for most of us.

Moderate temperature swings and temps into the mid 80s+ are perfectly fine. Reefs are found in tropical climates and they do get hot and temperatures can change quickly with the change of an ocean current or thermocline As for temp swings, a lot of people, myself included, believe that temp swings are actually desirable. Many of us are finding that corals that are used to swings tend not to get shocked and die when there is a swing. However, corals in a constant temperature environment, seem to get acclimated to that temp and when there are swings, which will happen, they can't handle it. So, IMO, a chiller is not desirable, unless maybe you are in Arizona and don't have AC in your house.
However, people have differing opinions on the subject.

 

yeah this is great info..chillers are great but not needed by most of us unless your running a few 400w halides in a canopy with no fans..you get what im saying

 

One may need to run a chiller if you have metal halide lighting. Personally I like running a chiller. Mine is set at 82 F, and the heater at 80 so either way I am not going to get much of a swings. Chillers have come along way in the last 5 years IMO.

 

Maybe needed with MH's depends I guess. I ran a 55g in college, on the second floor of a 2 story house. I had a canopy with 2x250W MHs, and with 2 x 4" fans pointed at the water and I never thought about temp. Temps in the house would commonly get into the upper 90s in summer and the tank stayed in the 80s. First summer I was worried, but after that, never even thought about temp.

Edit: should mention two things, this was not necessarily prolonged 90s, at night it usually cooled off a bit. And MH's were about 10" up over the water, but in a canopy. I think prolonged 90s could be more of a problem, or maybe a smaller tank with less buffering capacity, or a tank with less surface area etc... Don't mean to say a chiller is never a good idea, but I do think mostly is overkill. And I do strongly believe that if it is used, the temp should still be allowed to fluctuate some.