Lol. I’m not sure anyone is reading this but this should be fun (or cringey) to look back on.
The past 3 of 4 nights my ambient fish room temp has hit 85 which causes about a 1-2 degree temp rise in my sump/refugium system from 77.5-78 (normal) to 80. This means when it gets hotter here (and it will) I’m going to have problems since I’m adding 2 large submersed pumps and an extra 1000w+ of LED’s into the equation. Although my house temp is always right around 68-70….I stills foresee issues. Luckily I am confident that I can drop those 1-2 degrees with large fans vs a chiller.
If that doesn’t work, plan B is hanging plastic sheeting to create walls to the fish room and get a small AC unit. ($400 cost vs $1500 for a chiller. No extra pumps).
I have a fan on the refugium but can’t get one on the sump because it’s currently covered. It’s covered to block light (there’s a 400w refugium light hanging off and above it). I don’t want algae in my sump. One of my big “wish light” items for this tank was to keep a very clean sump to avoid maintenance issues on flow sensors and pumps and keeping the sump dark is important.
The other issue is that my Tunze ATO will not work when uncovered. It simply won’t trigger. Took me way too long to figure out the issue was the light.
So, I’m going to try tipping the refugium light so it’s angled away from the sump. I may also try creating a shield out of plastic cardboard to block it entirely but this feels unfinished and a nuisance to move it/put it back.
Ultimately on top of all of this the answer may be to go back to using my Apex Optic sensors as the ATO trigger with an LLS backup and ditch the Tunze but I spent so much on it and it was supposed to be a luxury purchase that I’ll kick myself I I have to drop it. Honestly I feel like I have a lack of control with the Tunze as I can’t see or log the hi/low sensors like I can with the Apex. I also won’t get any remote errors. Which is important as the sump is so remote and removed. Hopefully the ATO line flow sensor will give me a bit more real-time data and make me feel better about it.
I wish I had known/thought of:
1. A lid on the sump was going to cause heating issues (and create an inability to use a fan)
2. Tunze ATO’s are snowflakes and light spillover breaks them.
3. That I took my APEX (DIY) ATO for granted.
The past 3 of 4 nights my ambient fish room temp has hit 85 which causes about a 1-2 degree temp rise in my sump/refugium system from 77.5-78 (normal) to 80. This means when it gets hotter here (and it will) I’m going to have problems since I’m adding 2 large submersed pumps and an extra 1000w+ of LED’s into the equation. Although my house temp is always right around 68-70….I stills foresee issues. Luckily I am confident that I can drop those 1-2 degrees with large fans vs a chiller.
If that doesn’t work, plan B is hanging plastic sheeting to create walls to the fish room and get a small AC unit. ($400 cost vs $1500 for a chiller. No extra pumps).
I have a fan on the refugium but can’t get one on the sump because it’s currently covered. It’s covered to block light (there’s a 400w refugium light hanging off and above it). I don’t want algae in my sump. One of my big “wish light” items for this tank was to keep a very clean sump to avoid maintenance issues on flow sensors and pumps and keeping the sump dark is important.
The other issue is that my Tunze ATO will not work when uncovered. It simply won’t trigger. Took me way too long to figure out the issue was the light.
So, I’m going to try tipping the refugium light so it’s angled away from the sump. I may also try creating a shield out of plastic cardboard to block it entirely but this feels unfinished and a nuisance to move it/put it back.
Ultimately on top of all of this the answer may be to go back to using my Apex Optic sensors as the ATO trigger with an LLS backup and ditch the Tunze but I spent so much on it and it was supposed to be a luxury purchase that I’ll kick myself I I have to drop it. Honestly I feel like I have a lack of control with the Tunze as I can’t see or log the hi/low sensors like I can with the Apex. I also won’t get any remote errors. Which is important as the sump is so remote and removed. Hopefully the ATO line flow sensor will give me a bit more real-time data and make me feel better about it.
I wish I had known/thought of:
1. A lid on the sump was going to cause heating issues (and create an inability to use a fan)
2. Tunze ATO’s are snowflakes and light spillover breaks them.
3. That I took my APEX (DIY) ATO for granted.
