bdunn13

So, I read about this method a while back. Last night I checked my water temp and it was getting too warm with the lights on. Therefore, I decided to throw some ice in a bag and put the ziplock in my sump...


Within minutes(less than 5) the ice was the same temperature as the rest of the water. I did that a few times and the water temp did not change at all.

So this morning I decided to do the math.

My tank is 120 gallons, my sump / refugium is around 20 gallons and the water temp was around 81.

So, say I dropped 1 cup of ice in a ziplock bag in the tank and the ice was at 20 degrees.....


16 * 140 = 2240 (total cups of water in my setup)

2240 * 81 = 181440 + 20 = 181460

so now i gotta divide...

181460 / total volume which is 2241

181460 / 2241 = 80.9727

So basically, that ice dropped my water temperature 3 one hundredths of a degree.

Do people that recommend this method have small tanks? It surely is not practical for larger tanks.

Just for kicks, lets say we froze 64oz(4cups) of RO water and put that in the tank. Wit the tank still 81 degrees. And the water froze at 20 degrees again.

181440 + 80 = 181520 then again divide by total volume...

181520 / 2244 = 80.8912

So now at least you got it down 1 tenth of a degree.

Of course I am ignoring the fact that heat is absorbed when ice melts while no temperature change occurs. However, this should not be very much.

Shawnie

way too much info for me!!! LOL what a brain you have!

I freeze water bottles and float them..and use ice cubes in my smaller tanks...

mrsmuffin

My largest tank is only 30 gallons, but it is my son's 6 gallon tank that I use this method most in (I put in treated ice cubes.) I will have to pay more attention to the cube/temp drop ratio. I have noticed that the cubes melt rather quickly.