Dojella

I know NOTHING about chillers, except they seem REALLY expensive. I live in Riverside, CA and it's over 100F most days in summer. The apartment gets up to 90 or so during the day, and my tanks have been at 86/88 when I get home from work but I want them at 78. The AC gets turned on as soon as someone gets home and the tanks go back down to 78, but I'm worried about the daily temp changes.

I have two 55 gal and one 10 gal...advice on keeping them cool during the day? ... in an affordable way? Thanks!

btate617

I will give you my advise, I work in heating/cooling.

Like you said chillers are very expensive.
Turning off your A/C while at work during the day your house is heating up to 90 degrees. When you get home lets say you turn on your A/C and set the thermostat to 75 degrees. It takes a lot of energy, beings your A/C runs for a long time to bring the temp down. You will use less energy leaving your stat set to the temp you are comfortable with. It takes a lot less energy to maintain the temp in your house than it does to bring it down 15 degrees or so at the end of the day when you get home.

Brian

pepetj

I can tell chillers are expensive. I own two small ones and they are back in their boxes. I used them for six to eight months or so. The expensive part is not just the cost of the chiller but the raise in energy bill. I ended up relocating my fish in cooler parts of my house and turned the species tank (Rainbowfish) into community fish with species that tolerate high end temperature.

Keeping your AC runnig 24/7 is likely the best short term solution you have considering you are keeping cool water fish (e.g. goldfish, dojo loaches). Shortening or spacing the lights on/off could help a bit.

Pepetj
Santo Domingo