How to control humidity in fish tank room

[degibson84]

So i have two tanks in my finished basement at the moment a 75 and a 220. Once the 220 is cycled the 75 goes away. My issue is that the humidity is so high in the basement from the tanks that we are getting condensation on the walls and on the floors which in time turns to mold. My wife wants to put a dehumidifier in and i told her over my dead body will i be topping off 10 gallons a day. tanks both run around 78 degrees and i was wondering if i lowered the temp a little would the humidity in the basement drop as well? If not is there any other way to control humidity?

[hollister]

I dont think a dehumidifier by its self would be enough. Think of the room as a cold glass of water on a warm day. The glass will sweat. Bringing the room closer to the temp. of the tank or vise versa. A chiller to drop water temp would would reduce evap.

[mchud]

I installed one of these, and it was the best thing I ever did. It works great and is controlled by humidity or manual on.
http://www.amazon.com/Tjernlund-Prod...s=basement+fan

[gone fishin]

I run a dehumidifier in my basement. It is set to 50% hunidity. My topoff rate is usually around 2-3 gallons. Tank stays about 79 degrees

[degibson84]

2-3 gallons per day would put my pump out of the water. my return section of my sump has small dimensions i top off a gallon everyday when i get home from work. Looks like i will have to add an ATO

[degibson84]

Originally Posted by hollister

I dont think a dehumidifier by its self would be enough. Think of the room as a cold glass of water on a warm day. The glass will sweat. Bringing the room closer to the temp. of the tank or vise versa. A chiller to drop water temp would would reduce evap.

I wouldn't need a chiller would I? I think just dropping the heater down would work. My house temp is sitting at 69 right now. luckily it has been fairly cool the last few weeks

[E36328i]

Add ato or get a bigger sump

[gone fishin]

I do not run a chiller. The dehumidifier does not run all the time.

[hollister]

The room the tanks are in is 69? Then i like the excaust vent idea for sucking out the moist air.

[1SlickFish]

I feel sorry and give props to all the peeps that dont have ATO. These people are true dedicated fish lovers, not some lazy shmuck like me that doesnt refil the ATO for biweekly at a time.

[degibson84]

well the room may be a little warmer. the thermostat upstairs is sitting on 69

[degibson84]

Originally Posted by 1SlickFish

I feel sorry and give props to all the peeps that dont have ATO. These people are true dedicated fish lovers, not some lazy shmuck like me that doesnt refil the ATO for biweekly at a time.

i do plan on getting an ATO just didn't want to spend the extra on one right now. also still debating Tunze, JBJ, or ATO.com

[Mudbeaver]

This would be the best but it depend how much you want to spend or damage you want to avoid.

http://www.amazon.com/Fantech-1000-E...+air+exchanger

[dkeller_nc]

I'm afraid an air exchanger isn't going to fix your problem because of where you live. During the summer, my understanding is that Ohio gets just as hot and humid as North Carolina (where I live), it just doesn't last as long.

If you buy an air exchanger, you will be pulling in humid air at 90-95 deg F with a dewpoint of perhaps 70-75 degrees. Once your air exchanger removes the heat from the outside air (and puts it into the outgoing air), the inflow will be at 100% relative humidity.

It will rain in your basement like the Amazon.

You've two choices - either get a dehumidifier to run in the spring and fall, and use the house A/C to keep the humidity down in the summer, or add a window unit air conditioner to the basement (if that's possible, obviously) and run it from Spring to Fall with supplemental heat to keep the temperature correct in May and September.

By the way, all of these solutions are going to cost you way more in both purchase price and ongoing electricity costs than an ATO and 3 or 4 gallons of RODI per day will. That's assuming that you make your own RODI, which if you have a 220 gallon tank is a "must" anyway.

[Mudbeaver]

Originally Posted by dkeller_nc

I'm afraid an air exchanger isn't going to fix your problem because of where you live. During the summer, my understanding is that Ohio gets just as hot and humid as North Carolina (where I live), it just doesn't last as long.

If you buy an air exchanger, you will be pulling in humid air at 90-95 deg F with a dewpoint of perhaps 70-75 degrees. Once your air exchanger removes the heat from the outside air (and puts it into the outgoing air), the inflow will be at 100% relative humidity.

It will rain in your basement like the Amazon.

You've two choices - either get a dehumidifier to run in the spring and fall, and use the house A/C to keep the humidity down in the summer, or add a window unit air conditioner to the basement (if that's possible, obviously) and run it from Spring to Fall with supplemental heat to keep the temperature correct in May and September.

By the way, all of these solutions are going to cost you way more in both purchase price and ongoing electricity costs than an ATO and 3 or 4 gallons of RODI per day will. That's assuming that you make your own RODI, which if you have a 220 gallon tank is a "must" anyway.

Oh i was not aware of that , i'm a beaver from Canada, or a polar bear depending how you see it lol. We have 4 months of mild weather and 8 months of cold and kina dry. From what your describing to me now if Jacque Cartier who discovered Canada in 1534 was standing in front of me now...i'd beat the crap out of him lol. 90-95 oF is that summer only what winter if you have one....

[degibson84]

Originally Posted by dkeller_nc

I'm afraid an air exchanger isn't going to fix your problem because of where you live. During the summer, my understanding is that Ohio gets just as hot and humid as North Carolina (where I live), it just doesn't last as long.

If you buy an air exchanger, you will be pulling in humid air at 90-95 deg F with a dewpoint of perhaps 70-75 degrees. Once your air exchanger removes the heat from the outside air (and puts it into the outgoing air), the inflow will be at 100% relative humidity.

It will rain in your basement like the Amazon.

You've two choices - either get a dehumidifier to run in the spring and fall, and use the house A/C to keep the humidity down in the summer, or add a window unit air conditioner to the basement (if that's possible, obviously) and run it from Spring to Fall with supplemental heat to keep the temperature correct in May and September.

By the way, all of these solutions are going to cost you way more in both purchase price and ongoing electricity costs than an ATO and 3 or 4 gallons of RODI per day will. That's assuming that you make your own RODI, which if you have a 220 gallon tank is a "must" anyway.

maybe its just me but wont a dehumidifier just pull water out of the tank not the moisture in the air? since the water content in the air is not as high as 250 total gallons of water just sitting in a tank and sump

[Mudbeaver]

Originally Posted by degibson84

maybe its just me but wont a dehumidifier just pull water out of the tank not the moisture in the air? since the water content in the air is not as high as 250 total gallons of water just sitting in a tank and sump

Well kina. The way it works is that the dehumidifier has coils running cold collecting ambiant humidity in the room generated by your tank. Now that humidity instead of going on your wall , windows carpet floors etc should in theory go to the dehumidifier because he's colder and with his fans attracks and process the ambiant air faster. However your tank will compensate that effect by releasing more mostiure into the air its like and osmosis effect, the more humidity is taken away from the room , the more the tank will compensate the loss of it. Its basic physic. But Its either that or your walls bleeding water and drinking like a sponge. Your basically putting a humidifier (your 250G tank) versus a dehumidifier both plugged on your hydro bill. Life is grand.

[d2mini]

I started running a dehumidifier in my garage fish room.
Pulls at least 4g a day. It has it's pump so it drains directly into my sink.
Is it causing me to go through ATO faster? Not really sure. Did it stop everything from rusting in my garage? YES.

[billdogg]

I use a dehumidifier in my basement fish room and it works just fine. without it it feels like you are swimming down there. I keep it at 60% and all is well. No ATO (yet) I use ~ 2g/day in a 300g total system

[Hal]

Be careful with dehumidifiers. I tried one in my fish room, and the heat that it creates raised the temperature of the room to 90 degrees. Guess what that did to the water temp in my sump, which then goes into my DT.

[crypteria]

I run a dehumidifier without problems and would have mold in my house if I didn't run one... It is true that the relatively hot exhaust will raise the room's ambient temperature, though it is inconsequential in my case. Good luck! By the way I have 2 Tunze ATOs and am about to buy a 3rd- they are great.

Austin

[slief]

Exhaust vent would be my suggestion. I run a very large Rotron high CFM industrial 12" fan that is attached to the soffet above my tank. My tank is completely drywalled in both above and below the tank. It has ducting attached to the exhaust side and that goes directly to the outside of the house. It pulls air from above the tank but there are also channels in the curtain wall it's attached to that allow it to pull air from below the tank as well. The curtain wall separates the side of the tank from a closet that borders the outside wall. Even with 600 gallons of water volume and 5 gallons of evaporation a day, I have absolutely no humidity issues. That said, my sump and fuge are covered which helps a bit.

[dkeller_nc]

Regarding dehumidifiers & heat:

A dehumidifier is, in some ways, a "broken" air conditioner in that both the condensation and evaporation coils are in the same unit. The room air flows past the evaporation coils first, which are operating at about 42 deg F, the room air is either lowered to its dewpoint or down to about 52 deg F, water condenses and is drained away, then this same air blows past the condenser, which is typically operating at about 110 - 120 deg F.

The net result coming out of the unit is considerably less water in the air at a higher temperature in the room.

Since the maximum efficiency of any compressed gas heat engine is about 50% (see Carnot Cycle on Wikipedia if you want the thermodynamic explanation), and a real-world heat engine is considerably less efficient than the theoretical efficiency, you can expect that about 30% of the electricity is converted to condensed water, and about 70% is converted to heat.

In other words, you can actual calculate how much heat will be added to your room while the dehumidifier is running by multiplying its energy consumption by 70%. For example, this dehumidifier:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AU7GZXE

Uses 745 watts while in operation. About 520 watts of that is exhausted back to the room (that's about what a hair dryer puts out on the "low" setting).

So obviously, if you want to dehumidify and cool the room, you're better off with an air conditioner that will vent the heat to the outside.

[dkeller_nc]

Originally Posted by slief

Exhaust vent would be my suggestion. I run a very large Rotron high CFM industrial 12" fan that is attached to the soffet above my tank. My tank is completely drywalled in both above and below the tank. It has ducting attached to the exhaust side and that goes directly to the outside of the house. It pulls air from above the tank but there are also channels in the curtain wall it's attached to that allow it to pull air from below the tank as well. The curtain wall separates the side of the tank from a closet that borders the outside wall. Even with 600 gallons of water volume and 5 gallons of evaporation a day, I have absolutely no humidity issues. That said, my sump and fuge are covered which helps a bit.

That would work absolutely perfectly in Simi Valley, and not at all in the East - the ambient outdoor humidity is way too high, and that outdoor air will be pulled into the house at the rate that such an exhaust fan blows air outside.

But I envy you greatly - if our environment was that dry during the summer, my house would be cooled almost entirely by a "swamp cooler".

[jaynie1028]

Ugh I’m fitting a big humility problem in my half in half of the ground finished basement. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly helpful. I live on Long Island.