evaporative cooling - expected daily water loss?

[Mad Reefer]

Hi ,

I'm new to the hobby and purchased a complete system last week. I'm running 75gallon tank with a 20gal sump. I have 2x 54w T5 actinics and 250W MH. I'm running a 1/10 hp chiller and 2 small fans in the hood. I'm seeing about 4gal a day water loss and I'm wondering if that is in the normal range?

The fans only run when the lights are on. The chiller is available to run 24/7 but only clicks on occasionally at night.. Temp is set to 77. I am not seeing any water loss at night (i have to verify this by drawing a line)

Thanks,

-Madness

[Derek]

Hmm, I lose about two gallons a day in my 185. I do not have fans in my canopy or a chiller. The fans are probably what is causing any excessive water loss. How hot does your tank get if you turn off the fans?

[pbnj]

What's really odd is that you say your chiller is set to 77 and it rarely kicks on, which leads me to believe the tank doesn't get hot enough to justify a 4 gallon/day loss.

If it does get that hot, you have some extremely effective fans.

[Will]

how hot do you keep your A/C?

are the fans pointed directly at the water?

Have you checked for a leak?

How much does your skimmer pull out per day?

Do you do water changes while you sleep walk?

[+mcallahan]

What's really odd is that you say your chiller is set to 77 and it rarely kicks on, which leads me to believe the tank doesn't get hot enough to justify a 4 gallon/day loss.

If it does get that hot, you have some extremely effective fans.

I agree..that seems odd that your chiller rarely kicks on.

And 4 gallons/day water loss sounds like a lot.

Do your fans run when the lights are on, like you have them on the same timer? If so, that can lead to high water loss.

In my 90G, I lose little less than 2 gal/day, run no chiller, and only have my fans come on when the temp gets above 77.8. If my fans were always on when my lights were on, then:

1.) I'd be wasting some electricity as until my halides kick on, I don't need my fans on

2.) I might be going through the amount of water/day that you are.

(I hope you have an RO/DI unit, or else that's a lot of trips to the LFS)

[NonSequitur]

I go through about 4gal/day on my 55gal with no chiller, but the a/c in my house is undersized, which leads to the air being warm, but dry (80F with 20% or less humidity at 6 pm). My fans turn on with the lights and run for about an hour after they go out at night

I'm surprised to hear of that much evaporation with just two small fans in the hood.. I have two small fans in the hood and one of the largest clip-on fans I could find blowing directly at the water in the sump.

[Mad Reefer]

Thanks for the replies everyone,

I think i may be on the high side but still within normal range. My chiller doers run alot during the day. but only occasionally at night. sorry i misled you in my original post. I will collect some more data over this next week and post again. This first week has been highly variable as i was learning how to set everthing up. I did identify a leak in the chiller plumbing and have had some trouble correctly setting the skimmer level. (i am new)

how hot do you keep your A/C? 80C

are the fans pointed directly at the water? they are 5 inch fans. located in the back of the canopy on either corner of the tank pointed back to front throug a gap in the canopy that runs the whole length across the back. directly between the water and the lights. They click on when the actinics do 9 to 9. MH runs 10 to 8.

Have you checked for a leak? found small leak near chiller (i dont think that has been there the entire week as i pulled the chiller a few days ago to clean the air filter and probably caused the fitting to come loose at that time.

How much does your skimmer pull out per day? not much except for yesterday had it set wrong and it was full (2 cups?)

Do you do water changes while you sleep walk? LOL

the tank ran up to almost 87C (i know now that is way too high) without the fans but that was when the chiller had a completely clogged air filter. i have not tried to run fanless since.

mcallahan, what temperature controller are you using to trigger your fans? mine came with a probe for each fan that i assume you are supposed to place inthe water? but i do not see a way to set the trigger temp.

Thanks!,

Madness

[mFrame]

It must be running a lot, I have (2)250MH and 108w actinic on my 90g with 4 pc case fans running 24/7 and I only lose about a gallon a day.

[+mcallahan]

mcallahan, what temperature controller are you using to trigger your fans? mine came with a probe for each fan that i assume you are supposed to place inthe water? but i do not see a way to set the trigger temp.

Thanks!,

Madness

aquacontroller III

[Timfish]

Everyone seems to have covered everything in the above posts but just to throw in my 2 cents I'd consider a 2% a day evaporation high. I use fans a lot on my tanks and a couple with really high airflow routinely loose 10% to 15% a week but the majority are in the 5% a week range.

[Timfish]

Everyone seems to have covered everything in the above posts but just to throw in my 2 cents I'd consider a 2% a day evaporation high. I use fans a lot on my tanks and a couple with really high airflow routinely loose 10% to 15% a week but the majority are in the 5% a week range.

[Mad Reefer]

Just wanted to add to this thread in case anyone references it in the future.

With the chiller filter cleaned and the leak fixed the tank has settled in at and average 1.5gal /day water loss on my 75gal tank . I will be playing with various combinations of fans and chiller settings to optimize this further. Either way , this is much more manageable than the 4gal/day i was facing when i started this thread. thanks!

-Madness