Before this heatwave I already began to migrate my tank to a different time period. My lights are on at 12 midnight and run until 7am... Actinics are on from 6-10 at night so I can see them when I get home from work... Fan is on all day. to keep the tank cooler than the room.

My thoughts are its cooler and night, and why wouldn't I turn it on then rather than in in the morning or early evening when it's still considerably hot?

I have a heat pump on my house. It costs about a dollar a day to run. I keep my 150 gallon tank upstairs and my tank temps vary between 76 and 78. I have a pretty good exhaust fan which creates negative air pressure to draw the cool 73 degree air into the lighting area. I have two fans blowing over the tank. Water overheating problems are not an issue for me and it's strictly due to the ambient temperature of the house. Bill

Was going to switch to night lighting but forgot trying to get ready for vacation:redface:
Came home after 4 days near Nelson with 40c temp.
both tanks had lost over 20% water volume and temp in the high 80's
My 10G nano lost primary cerculation but did have a small pump moving some water and my bigger 33 had lots of water movment, was the water cascaded down several inchs to the new water level!!! :eek:
To my surprise everybody was well and waiting for a nice drink of water. :drinking:

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Mine peeked at 88-89F the other day. No ill effects though, maybe my thermometer is wrong.

My clowns have been doing the mating dance a lot these days, coincidence?

I may try cutting down my photo period a bit, I don't want to tempt fate.

I took my filter off my chiller pump to clean it the other day because the chiller was having trouble keeping up. I took the front cover off the chiller too so the filter didn't clog. My only mistake was I forgot to plug the chiller pump back in afterwards and came home to an 88 degree tank after work. The fish were breathing pretty heavily but I plugged the pump back in and slowly brought the temp back down to 78 after 8 hours. I consider myself very luck because with the amount of lighting on my tank I could have cooked everything very quickly. I'm please to report that there were no fatalities and everything seems to be doing quite well. The only thing I can manage is the heat in my condo. Even with an 11000 BTU air conditioner, it's no match for the amount of heat that my chiller pumps out. The coolest day in my condo all year was the day I forgot to plug the chiller pump back in.

Hehe I agree with that one. My basement gets stinking hot with the amount of heat the chiller pumps out. When I can't stand the heat anymore I just go visit the freezer aisle of the local grocery store :razz:

Was approaching 85°F (should have extended the fans beyond the MHs) but all that's behind me now.

Got the central AC installed last week, I'm happy, wife's happier and the tank is running at about a steady 79°.

Xtasia is right, My 230 Gal with MH lighting is in an AC enviroment and never raises above 72-73F even on 35 degree days. BTW I bet you its probaly cheaper to run a properly sized central AC system than a chiller. Then again without more info I cant say...

I would say your fans are doing most of the work. Central AC does help, by lowering the air temp enabling it to pick up more heat before it is equalized, but on its own usually isn't enuf, the question that remains now is how much water are you losing a day due to evaporative cooling? I was able to keep my tank under 82 with fans but I was losing 5 gal a day on a 90 gal tank, with the chiller I only lose 2 gal a day so that is a difference of 3 gal a day less water vapor being pumped into my house and up to 100 gal less of RO / month I have to make.

Steve

Without the chiller running, how cool do you keep your condo during a heat wave? If your AC can maintain a 21C temp during the hotest day of the year even with your MH lights on, There is a good chance you should be able to maintain a much cooler water temperature in your tank. Right now your cooling your tank by stealing BTUs from your AC unit as the heat rejection from your chiller is using capacity from your central AC unit therfore making you chiller work harder - vicious circle.