J
jonathan
Guest
For a lot of us who like having our tanks in rooms where we spend most of our time, it's really difficult to lower the temperature significantly.
I've got my tank set up beneath the window in my room and have been leaving the window open and closing the heating vent to lower the tank temperature to just under 60F. I genuinely like cold weather, but it gets really old when your bedroom is 60-ish for weeks at a time. Well this week, I got sick, and the cold became just unbearable. So being a physics major (and a closet MacGuyver fan), I decided to rig up a solution.
The setup
Materials:
small water pump
nearby window
a metal grill from a barbeque (mine's actually from a toaster oven)
a few pieces of long thin metal like a coathanger
a lot of airline tubing 30+ feet or so
container for holding small amount of tank water
large bucket to put junk-water in
Directions:
set up your container for tank water level with your tank and connect a tube between them to siphon water out of the aquarium. Put your pump in the container and attach a tube from the pump going out of the window. Run the tubing outside to the grill and weave it back and forth between the bars of the grill along its length, and then weave it back through the other direction, repeat this until you have it through the length of the grill a half a dozen times or so. Fill up your bucket/container of junk water and submerge the grill in the bottom. Add the other pieces of metal to the bucket and ensure that they are breaking the surface of the water. Run the rest of the tube back inside through the window and into your tank.
Performance:
For 3 days I've had the heating vent open and window closed so my room is a lovely 69 degrees.
Outside it has been in the 40's during the day, and mid 20's at night, and in Isaac's tank it has held steady between 45-48F (7-9C). This setup can be made more effective by increasing the size of the bucket and grill and the amount of water outside. Also there's no vibration because the pump is in a separate container from the aquarium.
At the risk of boring people to tears, here's a few short points about the thermal physics involved in case you decide to use this and modify it for your own needs.
metal conducts heat very well and makes it much easier to transfer heat from a warm object to a cold one, the reason for weaving the tube through the grill is to conduct the heat out of the water in the tube. The problem with metal is that it has a very low "specific heat" this means a little heat from the aquarium will raise the temperature of the grill a lot and it would stop sucking heat out. That's why the grill is submerged in the bucket of water. Water has a very high specific heat and can absorb a lot of energy from the metal grill without changing temperature much. It does raise the temperature a little bit though, and we want the water to radiate this heat away into the cold outdoors as fast as possible, which is why the additional pieces of metal are added on top. They must be in contact with the cold outside air so the water's heat can escape. (Also the whole setup must be in the shade, the sun will heat up all the metal really well and screw up everything)
I've got my tank set up beneath the window in my room and have been leaving the window open and closing the heating vent to lower the tank temperature to just under 60F. I genuinely like cold weather, but it gets really old when your bedroom is 60-ish for weeks at a time. Well this week, I got sick, and the cold became just unbearable. So being a physics major (and a closet MacGuyver fan), I decided to rig up a solution.
The setup
Materials:
small water pump
nearby window
a metal grill from a barbeque (mine's actually from a toaster oven)
a few pieces of long thin metal like a coathanger
a lot of airline tubing 30+ feet or so
container for holding small amount of tank water
large bucket to put junk-water in
Directions:
set up your container for tank water level with your tank and connect a tube between them to siphon water out of the aquarium. Put your pump in the container and attach a tube from the pump going out of the window. Run the tubing outside to the grill and weave it back and forth between the bars of the grill along its length, and then weave it back through the other direction, repeat this until you have it through the length of the grill a half a dozen times or so. Fill up your bucket/container of junk water and submerge the grill in the bottom. Add the other pieces of metal to the bucket and ensure that they are breaking the surface of the water. Run the rest of the tube back inside through the window and into your tank.
Performance:
For 3 days I've had the heating vent open and window closed so my room is a lovely 69 degrees.
Outside it has been in the 40's during the day, and mid 20's at night, and in Isaac's tank it has held steady between 45-48F (7-9C). This setup can be made more effective by increasing the size of the bucket and grill and the amount of water outside. Also there's no vibration because the pump is in a separate container from the aquarium.
At the risk of boring people to tears, here's a few short points about the thermal physics involved in case you decide to use this and modify it for your own needs.
metal conducts heat very well and makes it much easier to transfer heat from a warm object to a cold one, the reason for weaving the tube through the grill is to conduct the heat out of the water in the tube. The problem with metal is that it has a very low "specific heat" this means a little heat from the aquarium will raise the temperature of the grill a lot and it would stop sucking heat out. That's why the grill is submerged in the bucket of water. Water has a very high specific heat and can absorb a lot of energy from the metal grill without changing temperature much. It does raise the temperature a little bit though, and we want the water to radiate this heat away into the cold outdoors as fast as possible, which is why the additional pieces of metal are added on top. They must be in contact with the cold outside air so the water's heat can escape. (Also the whole setup must be in the shade, the sun will heat up all the metal really well and screw up everything)
