extremely high humidity in aquarium room...

[DeMarcusR]

As the title says, the humidity is extremely high. So high that my LED fixtures are pretty much staying soaked therefore causing the GFI breaker to constantly trip.

Over the past few days, I've had the door open to the room in addition to having a fan in the entrance to blow in fresh air from the outside. The front door to the house has been wide open the past few days also in an attempt to help out... There is a dedicated window a/c unit in the room but in my opinion it seems to add to the problem rather than help.

I was going to add a 70-90 CFM exhaust fan today to see if it helps and even possibly add a dehumidifier to the room..

Should I add a fan above the aquarium to blow over the LED fixtures to see if that helps blow some of the moisture away.. I'm almost certain the height that the fixtures are off the water surface is a problem (3 inches) however, my tank is relatively deep so, 3 inches is the ideal height...

Does anyone have any other ideas or suggestions?

 

[Guest]

By a dehumidifier or start running ac


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[DeMarcusR]

I'm already running an air conditioner for the room... the compressor hardly comes on because of the size of the room.. Whenever it does, the tank temp drops too low. tank temp stays around 75 degrees when the ac is running.. I've raised the temp on the a/c so that it runs more but, it doesn't seem to put a dent in the humidity in the room. 300 gallons of water in a room less than 100 sqft seems almost impossible to keep dry

 

[washingtond]

How long have you had the fish room and did you ever have problems before? Last summer for instance.

 

[DeMarcusR]

@washingtond wrote:

Fishroom has been operational for roughly 2 years.. It's always been humid but i've never had any issues with the breaker tripping. the only thing that appears to be wet in the room besides the floor is the LED light fixtures.. Well, there's the assorted cables and such but they're all run to where the water drips below the outlets.. All the electrical for the room is at 48 inches or higher to ensure they're above water level and all the cords have drip loops.

Last summer was pretty humid.. it didn't cause much of a problem though.. nothing really got wet.. The halides were mounted almost 20 inches above the water surface..

 

[blide]

I just bought one of these last week and plan to use it to vent out the humid air building up in the ceiling of my fish room. Remember hot humid air rises, so that's probably why you see moisture on the lights above.

http://www.suncourt.com/ThruWall108.html

$50 - http://www.amazon.com/Room-Room-Fan-Circulate-Cold/dp/B0015RZW0K

 

[bimmerzs]

You can try to keep the ac on and find a way to exchange the air betweem the fish room and the rest of the house. I would use a controller to maintain the tank temp's and prevent any issues if the room ac quit for some reason.

 

[DeMarcusR]

@blide wrote:

Bill - looks like a decent idea; where are installing yours? Is it just being used to vent out the humid air or are you using it to bring in fresh air also?



@bimmerzs wrote:

to make sure i'm following correctly, when u say exchange the air between the fishroom and the rest of the house; do you mean bring fresh air in from the rest of the house and blow the exhaust out into the house or out the attic? I'm hesitant on blowing salty, humid air back into the house.. Forgive me if the question seems a bit ignorant. I just want to get clarification.. As far as the controller for temp control, I'm having the opposite problem most people have.. I have no problem keeping the tank cool, it's keeping the tank warm is where my problem lies; I use the controller for the heaters however, right now the controller is rendered useless due to the fact that the dc8 is connected to the LED lights, and keeps tripping the breaker.. So until I get the room dried out, i'm leaving the dc8 unplugged.



Could I somehow bring in fresh air from the rest of the house and vent the old, stale and humid air out through the attic so that there is a constant air exchange?

 

[bimmerzs]

I think you would have bigger issues venting that into the attic. If you didn't have a fish room where do you think that stuff would go, the homes main ac help's pull out the humidity so was just thinking it would work. I would definitely add a humidifier to the room but it seems like if you had the ac on and a humidifier along with leaving the door open, then it would dry out the room then you can close the door and see if the ac and humidifier can maintain low humidity in there. You can ask one of the ac guy's on here how to best handle you situation.

 

[DeMarcusR]

@bimmerzs wrote:

I understand. Truthfully, I thought that was the whole reason for having the dedicated ac for the fishroom itself.. As far as venting, I guess I should have been clear - I was going to use one of the restroom exhaust fans to vent the exhaust through the attic out the eve on the side of the house or through the ridge vents on top of the house.... Right off, I cant think of any way to vent the fishroom into the rest of the house that would be aesthetically pleasing..

I'll have to think on that one to see how it can be done.. Right now, the fish room door is standing wide open with the fresh air from outside blowing into the room.. I'm a little afraid to close the front door due to the smell of the skimmer... That thing is a beast and pulls out toxic waste that is almost black in color..

 

[bimmerzs]

Put a mesh bag of carbon on top of the cap so that it covers the holes , that should take care of the smell. Good luck

 

[Guest]

Run a dehumidifier If you are having trouble now wait till the humidity really picks up. If you have a/c LEDs might not be producing enough heat to kick on the a/c. That is why old mh users are having to add heaters to there tanks when they convert to LEDs as the heat isn't there anymore

 

[DeMarcusR]

@kuyatwo wrote:

Okay, so in your opinion - should I completely forgo the exhaust vent and use a small dehumidifier such as the one listed on sear's website? " http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_04219350000P?mv=rr" It costs just as much as the cheapest 2.0 sone exhaust fan and doesn't require any additional wiring or DIY skills...

 

[fperkins]

Not cheap for sure, but lot of folks in the hobby in St Louis (where I'm from) have these installed to deal with the humidity.

http://www.smarthome.com/3033/HE150-Air-to-Air-Heat-Exchanger/p.aspx

 

[timthetoolman]

Could you run a fan to a roof vent? It would pull air from the house through the fish room and outside. You would have to have someone help with the roof vent that knows what they are doing or you'll have leaks in your roof.

I would worry about condensation in the duct in the winter because the colder air in the duct will lower the temperature dew point spread and the water would condensate out of the air. It may be wise to make an 'p' trap with a drain on the vent pipe and drain it over to a plumbing vent line. That line would need to pitch about 1/4" per 10' so the trap would need to be about 1' off the joist. A simple p trap could be made by making the line out of PVC then elbowing into a tee (bull head - meaning it goes into the middle part of the tee first) then put a reducer at the bottom the drains to a 1" PVC line to the plumbing vent and on the other side of the go up to the roof vent. I bet one of those PVC saddles would work for the drain line.

That device Frank mentions has a drain line in it. I'm not sure how it's installed though. It says it has a heat exchanger, what's that mean?

 

[blide]

@DeMarcusR wrote:

Okay, so in your opinion - should I completely forgo the exhaust vent and use a small dehumidifier such as the one listed on sear's website? " http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_04219350000P?mv=rr" It costs just as much as the cheapest 2.0 sone exhaust fan and doesn't require any additional wiring or DIY skills..."]


If you get a dehumidifier you're going to need a larger unit. If I remember right your tank is pretty big and IMO that little unit won't keep up. Plus, remember with a dehumidifier you have to dump the water it collects so you need a container or some type of drain.

 

[Guest]

Either get a dehumidifier or run ac at lower temperature and have heaters during winter fall spring months once it gets warmer prob won't néed heaters and can raise ac temp a little higher.

The dehumidifier I have came with a container once it fills up it shuts off or you can plump straight to a drain it cane with an adapter.

A room fan might work I have no experience with them in a aquarium environment


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[Drew]

@fperkins wrote:

Frank,
Can you tell us some more about these? It looks very interesting and seems like it would be a more efficient option.

 

[dp1416]

well coming from dealing with this issue quite alot with my room, here is what i have done.

1. bought the largest 70gpd dehumidifier i could find
2. installed a 70cfm fan in the celing and ran it out the soffit via a sofit vent.

If i had to do it all over again i would do what fperkins posted. I will be doing one of those units pretty soon. i have read numerous things about them on RC and it seems to be the perfect solution for such a nagging problem.

When you put a big dehumidifier in the room it is a double edge sword. In the winter it is not bad because as it runs it heats the room up. In the summer it really stinks. It heats the room up and the fans on the tank blow more to cool it down, it creates evaporation and then the dehumidifier runs more. It is a vicious cycle. Give me a call so we can talk. PM me if you dont have my number.

 

[chubble]

He Demarcus I sent you a pm about a dehumidifier I have if you are interested only used for 7 months. Works great.