fan on reservoir

mangerton

mangerton

Member
has anyone added a small fan on top of the reservoir . would that make the water temps colder or would it make it hotter as it would be pushing room temp air in to the res

its getting in to summer and dwc with out a chiller is hard to keep temps down. i do the old frozen bottles of water but that's annoying.

id like to know your thoughts on it
 
Wastei

Wastei

Well-Known Member
mangerton said:
has anyone added a small fan on top of the reservoir . would that make the water temps colder or would it make it hotter as it would be pushing room temp air in to the res

its getting in to summer and dwc with out a chiller is hard to keep temps down. i do the old frozen bottles of water but that's annoying.

id like to know your thoughts on it
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Maybe you should go the sterile route? You don't have to worry that much about water temps running a sterile system. Buy some HTH Pool Shock. I add 0.2g with every rez change of 13.5 gallons and dose e3d with 0.1g to run 0.5-1ppm residual.

If you run smaller buckets you could do a stock solution so it's easier to measure.
 
mangerton

mangerton

Member
Wastei said:
Maybe you should go the sterile route? You don't have to worry that much about water temps running a sterile system. Buy some HTH Pool Shock. I add 0.2g with every rez change of 13.5 gallons and dose e3d with 0.1g to run 0.5-1ppm residual.

If you run smaller buckets you could do a stock solution so it's easier to measure.
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i don't have a problem with pathogens so i don't bother with h2o2 or other products like that i didn't know they let you run your re at a hotter temp. if my temps get over 23c i consider that bad. last time i grow in summer i was seeing 27c unacceptable temp . i was hopping adding a fan would have some sort of cooling affect on the water to lower it like a few degrees
 
Wastei

Wastei

Well-Known Member
Will not work. It will cool down to ambient temp, you can't fight with physics. You could build a chiller from an old dehumidifier and a digital thermostat. Used it when i ran DWC, nowadays I don't really bother using it. I run calcium hypochlorite and polysorbate20 between runs to remove any biofilm and to sterilize.

You don't know if you have problems with pathogens if you haven't put the solution on agar dish to cultivate.
 
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Roger A. Shrubber

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
it would cool it down, but not by anything like a useful amount. if you want your res to be colder, get a chiller. period. people have tried all the things you're going to think of eventually, and they all now have chillers, because none off the things they already thought of work
 
Wastei

Wastei

Well-Known Member
Roger A. Shrubber said:
it would cool it down, but not by anything like a useful amount. if you want your res to be colder, get a chiller. period. people have tried all the things you're going to think of eventually, and they all now have chillers, because none off the things they already thought of work
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I used to run chiller now I don't. It's not needed in a sterile system
 
mangerton

mangerton

Member
ok thanks for the opinions and information. guess ill go the sterile rout or ill go back to coca for summer
 
Roger A. Shrubber

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
it's cheaper to go sterile, chillers and all the stuff that go with them aren't cheap, and use about the same amount of power as a bar fridge. just make sure you get your amounts and ratios right.
 
mangerton

mangerton

Member
Roger A. Shrubber said:
it's cheaper to go sterile, chillers and all the stuff that go with them aren't cheap, and use about the same amount of power as a bar fridge. just make sure you get your amounts and ratios right.
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thats why i was looking at different things i could try. i still think if i bring in cold air from out side the room and had it blowing in the res it would cool it but them i can see how it would make little to no difference as its still ambient air so i wont waste my effort trying
 
Observe & Report

Observe & Report

Well-Known Member
You can absolutely get several degrees of cooling with a fan blowing across the top of your res. It is a very popular technique with reef keepers. Maybe it is enough for you, maybe not. Definitely try it before dropping coin on a chiller. The thing to not do is try to make your own chiller out of a dorm fridge or whatever.
 
mangerton

mangerton

Member
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Wastei

Wastei

Well-Known Member
mangerton said:
ok i will need to use some sort of product to keep my res sterile if im going to try grow in the hot weather. checked my roots today and yep not amazing. HTH Pool Shock costs too much to ship to Australia. does anyone else know of a cheaper alternative

i can get something called SWIMMING POOL SPA SHOCK https://www.ebay.com/itm/SWIMMING-POOL-SPA-SHOCK-CHLORINE-FREE-WATER-CLARIFIER-KILLS-BACTERIA-ALGAE-1Kg/293296170991?hash=item4449d067ef:g:~QwAAOSwQGtdslZw
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I don't know about potassium monosulphate, it will probably work but you will have a hard time finding and calculating the correct dosage.

You could probably get some local variant of the same product. It's to common, that's why you won't find it online locally. You find it in hardwarestores etc as Pool equipment. I found it at my local Super Market at 70% strength. Make sure to read the label, it usually says 60-70% Calcium hypochlorite :leaf:
 
Wastei

Wastei

Well-Known Member
Observe & Report said:
You can absolutely get several degrees of cooling with a fan blowing across the top of your res. It is a very popular technique with reef keepers. Maybe it is enough for you, maybe not. Definitely try it before dropping coin on a chiller. The thing to not do is try to make your own chiller out of a dorm fridge or whatever.
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A modified/repurposed dehumidifier has lower load in cooling water in a tank than dehumidifying moisture out of the air. Don't cuz things you clearly don't understand.
 
mangerton

mangerton

Member
Wastei said:
I don't know about potassium monosulphate, it will probably work but you will have a hard time finding and calculating the correct dosage.

You could probably get some local variant of the same product. It's to common, that's why you won't find it online locally. You find it in hardwarestores etc as Pool equipment. I found it at my local Super Market at 70% strength. Make sure to read the label, it usually says 60-70% Calcium hypochlorite :leaf:
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ok so anything with 60-70% Calcium hypochlorite is what i should look for. if they have anything ill check back before buying it. if not ill just suck it up and pay for shipping with that other product
 
Wastei

Wastei

Well-Known Member
Observe & Report said:
You're the one that doesn't understand evaporative cooling but is still giving out advice.
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I'm talking from experience. Been using said system for 5+ years before being sold for double the investment. You can't fight physical law, what don't you understand about that statement? :lol:
 
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Roger A. Shrubber

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
mangerton said:
ok i will need to use some sort of product to keep my res sterile if im going to try grow in the hot weather. checked my roots today and yep not amazing. HTH Pool Shock costs too much to ship to Australia. does anyone else know of a cheaper alternative

i can get something called SWIMMING POOL SPA SHOCK https://www.ebay.com/itm/SWIMMING-POOL-SPA-SHOCK-CHLORINE-FREE-WATER-CLARIFIER-KILLS-BACTERIA-ALGAE-1Kg/293296170991?hash=item4449d067ef:g:~QwAAOSwQGtdslZw
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https://taylortechnologies.com/en/page/113/shocking-interference

Monopersulfate is not an algaecide and does not sanitize (kill). It can also raise TDS levels dramatically.

i believe you want something with calcium hypochlorite
 
Wastei

Wastei

Well-Known Member
Observe & Report said:
Which physical law would that be?
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In this case we were discussing cooling reservoirs water temp. I said you can't cool water below ambient temp if your not using some sort of coolant system.

Your giving out bad advices to newcomers that's why I say you don't talk from experience. You say you can cool a tank down several degrees using fan, while it might work theoretically, it has no practical use in Hydroponics. "Evaporating cooling using a fan on a reservoir". Sound like that will only lead to a dirty system and higher water usage.
 
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