How do you cool your tank?

Yea....thats nuts...my house is 5200 sq/ft and I cant turn on the AC just for my tank. I could buy 5 chillers for that price!!!!

I am going to try the fan route and see how that does!

I know my next thing is going to be ATO....

 

That just makes up for the northerners having to heat their houses in winter.;D

For most of the US, keeping the house cool with the AC is an easy way to do it.

Also, having a basement sump is a good way to keep the tank's temperature down.

 

It's not crazy at all. You live in CT, you shouldn't have crazy high temps like they do in much hotter climates.

 

There are a couple to few months a year here where it gets really hot. August is a killer month here!

 

I was going to put my tank upstairs, but decided on the basement for several reasons, one being temperature. My basement is always about 5-10 degrees cooler then upstairs which really helps keep the tank temp down. Plus, if it does get too hot, a fan across the sump will bring it down up to about 4 degrees.

 

Yeah, we have that too.

 

It never gets hot here in Atlanta... oh wait, no I mean the opposite of that.

 

I hire a couple of Philippino orphans to wave big novelty palm frond fans on my tank, drops the temperature by about 2 degrees.

 

I do the same thing with a $8.99 timer form Lowe's, LOL! Sorry I just don't really see the need for one of those things.

No not really, it stays at a pretty steady temp unless you talking close to shore, There is changes because the Outside temps and the waves are constantly mixing just like the fans your going to use.

Thats a 1.5 to 2 degree swing which IMO isn't that big a deal. I have had tanks in the past that had 3 or 4 degree swings with really no ill effects.

I have a 20 gallon frag tank under a 175 watt NH light, you want to talk about a cooling nightmare! when I first set it up I let the light run without a fan and the temp rose almost to 83 degrees from 78 when the light came on.

I put 2 computer fans on it that come on when the light comes one, one blowing across the surface of the water and one blowing across the light, not at the light but about 3" below the light. The temperature stays at a constant 78 Degrees now.

You know i have used both, that kind of fan and computer fans and have found out that the computer fans work better. They are smaller, easier to mount, cheaper to buy, last longer, cheaper to replace and actually cheaper to run.

You can get 6 fans and a 12 volt power supply for less than 10 bucks on EBay, hooking them to the power supply is simplicity itself, mostly because if you hook them up backward they will not run!

LOL, well you live in a DESERT right, no wonder its 400 bucks, sorry I know it sucks. I spend about $350 to cool and heat a 2500 SQ ft home and that includes all 5 of my tanks.