Hell in paradise

Ive been having a series of bad luck with my ac unit this year (like every year when it miraculously turns 90 degrees outside, then doesn’t work when I especially need it), therefore, my tank temp suffered :[ I came home from work the other day and the top floor of my house [where my tank is] was literally 92 degrees - apparently all day. Soooo my tank got to 92 degrees as well! What REALLY blows is the fact that my tank is still relatively young with a lot of sensitive corals/fish/etc which totals to nearly $2000…. I ran out of ice/ice packs in my attempt to drop the temp, and after fighting with my ac unit- the top floor wont get lower than 82, which is where my tank temp is fighting its damndest to stay as well… Top it off- my anemone, pearl coral, 15 heads worth of Duncan’s, xenias. and other various corals are all used to being at 76. Thanks be to God nothing died
I know that for this exact reason is 1 of the main good/’obvious’ reasons to buy a chiller, especially with my investement, a chiller simply seems ‘obivious’. Sadly, with stated above grand total, I don’t have the ~$400+ dollars to buy 1.. Sounds like an oxymoron but my tank was bought over time..
Thoughts? Recommendations?
Problem #2
I currently have crushed coral substrate and was just about to make a gradual attempt of changing to a bag of live (wet in a bag) sand that I just bought the day before the fish nearly boiled. Since everything has been/still is stressed (however less now for the time being) how long would ‘you’ wait to make this change?
::sorry for the novel::

 

sorry for your bad luck - it sucks big time

Problem 1 - are your lights raised- can you get some venting/ fans blowing across top of water? heat issues can be reduced by allowing greater evaporation

problem 2 - sorry cant offer any opinion , but the bump may help locate someone who can

Steve

 

I would invest in a chiller if your AC is that bad.

 

+1, fans will help alot. Also, if that doesnt help enough, as a last resort you could cut your photoperiod down a little.

 

If it only gets hot for a day or two you could probably even turn out your lights for a day or two entirely to help with heat. As long as you aren't needing to do that every couple of days but once a month or something like that should be no big deal if the tank is healthy.

 

i would not put live sand in an established tank. you will start a cycle and it could be bad. i would switch to dry sand. its cheaper anyways and you can save for a chiller

 

I'm in the basement, and summer has hit me really hard. I saw Tempe maxing @ 87 on Saturday. The same day I put in my first coral, needless to say I've Bern pretty paranoid. I put a box fan and got the temps to drop to 85. The fan was some distance away blowing on the sump. I ordered the azoo quad fan setup. It's supposed to arrive on Thursday. Hopefully it can regulate @ 82.

A chiller is a luxury for me right now. An expensive one

 

I just put a little $7 wallyworld fan on my sump; it brought the temp down about three degrees. I plan to add one or two more if necessary.

 

I'm not sure how to explain this best so please ask questions if you have any and I'll try and clarify.

Unless a chiller was vented to outside the room, it won't do any good. The ambient temperature of the room was 90 degrees. The tank heated up to 92 degrees. Well, heat (energy) doesn't go away. Whatever heat was extracted from the water, gets blown back into the room by the fan in the chiller increasing the ambient temperature in the room, which then re-heats the water. If the only heat source was the lighting and the pumps, this would be fine. But it doesn't work if the ambient temp of the room is the main cause of the heat.

When the ambient temperature of the room is high which is why the tank is overheating, you have the same issue. Just about every year in St. Louis we'll have a heat wave that is just outrageous. Every year, poor and elderly people die and it's a darn shame because we open up "Cooling Centers" at libraries, Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc. Yet some people are determined to just sit in front of a fan and die. Here's why. If your body temp is 98.6 and you are blowing 105 degree air on yourself, you are actually heating your body up as opposed to cooling it off.

 

Thank you all for your help: my problem is solved, [fixed the ac unit/raised my lights] and my tank is staying around 78.