Dealing with heat/cold when keeping tank in garage

[myjohnson]

So I'm thinking about keeping a 125g in the garage. I know I will have to deal with low temp. in the winter and high temp. during the summer.

What are the things I can do to keep this tank in the garage?

thanks guys.

[JStrider]

Re: Dealing with heat/cold when keeping tank in garage

Insulate the garage some.  In the winter time you could wrap towels or some other kind of insulation around the tank itself...

in the summer time you can point a fan at the water surface to encourage evaporative cooling..

[TaTeR ToT]

Re: Dealing with heat/cold when keeping tank in garage

i use 2x 200 watt jagers in the winter and 2 Vornado fans in the summer on my 75g RES and Bass tank in the garage, they do fine, i also kept a breeding pair of green terrors in their for several years this way. they breed year round.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: Dealing with heat/cold when keeping tank in garage

Foam sheets to cover the wet/dry and tank if needed along with heaters.... its in a garage not the backyard.

Summer time.... fans over the sump on a rancho temp controller.

Simple as that.

I was able to keep my 30g which had about 400w of lighting on it at 79f steady when it would boil at 97f if I'd left it as is with just a simple fan.

[twofronts]

Re: Dealing with heat/cold when keeping tank in garage

Myjohnson, i was contemplating the same thing. The summer months is where i came to an hault. you can always *** heater for an minimal price but a chiller is out of the question, atleast for me. I do like the fans idea over the sump, any other way?

Im thinking more on the lines of an 125 along side my garage.

[PhishPhreek]

Re: Dealing with heat/cold when keeping tank in garage

Try a DIY cooling tower or earth tubes

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Cooling/passive_cooling.htm

[Spot86t]

Re: Dealing with heat/cold when keeping tank in garage

Another thought is to see if it's possible to keep the tank on the coolest wall of the garage.  For example, my west wall gets nil when it comes to direct sunlight - so it happens to be the coolest wall (aside from the back wall, which has my fishroom on the other side).  Flip side to that is it's also the coldest wall in winter.  Nothing a (modified to fit) twin size electric blanket kept on a shallow shelf under the tank, and fastened along the back adn side panels of the tank can't handle.  Styro insulation on the outside (so blanket wires are sandwiched between) with that makes for some low wattage heating to help counter that.

Going to check out that link from PhishPhreek - cooling towers are very functional at what they do (evaporative cooling) - they installed one where I work for the a/c system - it cools a huge metal warehouse for a fraction of the price of a conventional unit.  Chemical plants ALL use them - they have giant units.  Evaporation reduces heat greatly - I've even heard of people installing sprinkler systems for their roofs that activate at intermittant brief times throughout the day - the evaporation removes substantial BTU's.

[nacra99]

Re: Dealing with heat/cold when keeping tank in garage

I use that silver insulation from home depot.
Looks like silver bubblewrap which i tape to 3 sides of the tank.

[spyke1969]

Re: Dealing with heat/cold when keeping tank in garage

nice info PP