Pimp my tank! (pictures)

[connor]

Heya *@*,

I finally managed to finish a long-time project of mine. Since I live in a loft apartment which becomes quite hot (30-35°C) during the sommer months (cheers to the non-existant roof insulation *sigh*) my loach community tank really needed some way to be cooled down a bit.

A professional compressor cooler was out of question (much too expensive, draws a lot of power, would heat up my room even more) so the only thing left was to install some fans in the aquarium cover that could blow on the water surface, hence cooling the water by evaporation.


Step #1: A black 3 mm board made out of PVC hard foam.


Step #2: Board cut to the right size, holes for the fans, screws, cable and a handle added.


Step #3: Bottom side, 2x 80 mm YS-Tech FD 128025LB (2A3) fans from a PC-Tuning shop added (with grills on both sides for the extra-curious fish). Those are rated 12V / 2000 rpm / 51 m³/h. I run them at 9V though so they turn slower and even more quietly.


Step #4: Bottom side, while I was at it I thought I could also add a moon light to my tank so the changes in lighting would be less 'brutal'. Again from a PC-Tuning shop, a 30 mm blue cold cathode fluorescent light (CCFL) with some aluminum tape for better reflection. CCFL is glued to the cover (bad idea) and the cables are fixed with adhesive tape (even worse idea).


Top side.



Step #4 .. revisited. Now that I think about it again I have no idea why I thought any kind of conventional glues would withstand 100% humidity for more than a minute .. because they don't. This time the CCFL was fixed with 2 cable ties and the cables were attached to the cover with a little hot glue which seems to hold up nicely so far.


Again .. top side. Connectors to the power supply hot-glued to the cover.


The original "Juwel" cover.


My creation.


Finished! The blue box is the inverter needed for the CCFL (those run at 680V ).


And now the best part .. the cooling really works! The fans cool down the tank for about 1°C in just 2 hours so it's really easy for me now to keep the water temperature below 30°C even on the hottest days of the summer. The blue moonlight looks absolutely awesome and my fish seem to like it, too.

-Connor

[shari2]

nice DIY expo!
wish I was more handy...

[Keith Wolcott]

Very nicely done. Thanks for sharing.

[Mark in Vancouver]

That's rather good. Do both fans direct air into the tank? Or does one go in while the other acts as exhaust?

Pretty clever - these should be marketed for those summer heat waves!

[connor]

@Mark,
both fans blow into the tank directly onto the water surface. There are plenty of openings on the back side where the air can go out - I can actually feel the breeze there.

@shari2
It wasn't so difficult to make this! Took me about 5 hours altogether. An extra set of hands to help you hold the cover is mandative, though.


One more picture with the moonlight in action (picture was slightly manipulated to make it look more like it does in reality)


-Connor

[shari2]

Very nice effect connor!
Yanno, you really could market this ... I'd buy one.

[Ded1]

Jesus! I just figure it out how to make a CO2 DIY mix with two bottles, and I felt like king of the world

And check this guy!! Honestly - great job. Somehow reminds me when you put extra vents in your PC. So how effective it is, did you had a "hot day" to try it or not yet?

[zmo63]

That's really impressive! We have a similar problem here in Hotlanta. I had to unplug all the heaters about two months back and the temp was still over 80 F. I put the lights on risers and it dropped the temperature down to 78. Not impressive enough to merit a post, but it was all we needed in this case (Oh it also helped when we finally turned on the central air!).

[loachmom]

Great idea, connor! Since my tank is in my un-airconditioned kitchen, I'm going to have to show this to my hubby.
This will be my first summer with a fish tank, and I've been a little concerned about how hot it might get.

Thanks

[lf11casey]

This is a cool project. My tanks are currently in the basement, so the temp stays at about 78. The new house is a half basement type deal and hopefully I won't have temp problems over there. But if I do i'll keep this in mind.

[connor]

Somehow reminds me when you put extra vents in your PC. So how effective it is, did you had a "hot day" to try it or not yet?

No really hot day yet but I can already tell that it works quite effectively. Tank was at 30°C and after 2 hours it was at 29°C and after 4-5 hours at 28°C. Mind that I'm running the fans at 9V only (instead of 12V).

Apparently the evaporation of 1 litre of water 'consumes' 2255 kilo Joule of energy. If you remove 4.18 kJ of heat energy from 1 litre of water it will cool down for 1°C so theoretically the evaporation of 1 l would cool down 540 l for 1°C. Practically it's a lot less because the heat energy is removed from the surrounding air, too. Also the above calculation implies a 'perfectly' isolated tank.

Anyway, it works, it's cheap and the only downside is that you'll have to refill quite a bit of water. My guesstimate is that with the fans running non-stop about 5-10 litres will evaporate per day.

-Connor

[Graeme Robson]

Very interesting!

Good shout!

[Pixelated_Pirate]

Very cool. The only thing I've done remotely similar is add 3 fans to my computer. I don't understand how you did the power part though? And I have the same sinking wafers as you, lol.

[Ded1]

Connor, dont make me come to Germany, pick you up, bring you here to install those on my Juwel tank, pay you...damn, maybe I even would if I had a car, aint that far away

Stay in touch when summer really hits hard, to inform us how its working

[connor]

@Ded1
Thanks for the "kind" words. Will let you know how it works on a really hot week.

@Pixelated_Pirate
Sorry for the slow answer. For the power part I got 2 switched-mode power supplies (1 for the fans, 1 for the moonlight). Those are jumperable to different voltages (12V, 9V, 7.5V etc.) and more energy-efficient than simple AC/DC transformers.
Add some cables, connectors and a little bit of soldering and voilà:



-Connor