Anybody have a sealed sump? Evap/humidity question.

[Hal]

My recent electrical bill came in for the month and it was horrible. I'm trying to figure out how to reduce my energy usage. One of my energy hogs (I think) is a 80 cfm fan in my basement fish room that exhausts humid air to the outside. If you stand on the stairs to the basement you can feel the cool breeze rushing through the pet door in the door at the top of the stairs, sucking air conditioned air into my basement. The fish room fan runs 24/7.

One option is to install a humidstat control on the fan. Another option is to seal my sump, so that evaporation is reduced, thereby reducing the need to run the fan.

I'm worried, however, that if I seal the sump I'll have temp issues with my main tank, which already runs a little warm (83-84 degrees in the summer).

Has anybody sealed their sump? If so, did your tank temp change?

[travis32]

based on science, I would have to say yes, reducing evaporation would raise your temp. By how much, there's probably a math equation for that.

My tank is in my living room, (house is raised off the ground about 4 feet. Has around a 4 ' crawl space. The living room without dehumidifier (with central A/C) stays around 70% humidity. I installed a dehumidifier this year, which raised my electric bill by around $40 - $50 a month. It will run 24/ 7 and caps out at reducing the humidity, just got it down to 53% after running and emptying the dehumidifier 24/7 for a week straight.

I wish there were cost effective alternatives, but the dehumidifier alone costs more than the tank I think in electricity.
I probably need a 2nd dehumidifier to get the humidity down to 50% and prevent mold / mildew growth.