How much evaporaton must occur.......

H

Habz

AC Members
Dec 4, 2005
16
0
0
before a top off MUST be made. Im planning a nano tank with some low light corals.

Currently, i have a 2 bulbs fiture with two 20 watts pc lights (spiral, screw in 50/50 bulbs y coralife) in them. They get hot, but i do not have any evaporation with the lid in a week.

Now to grow low-medium light corals, i plan on adding a T5 unit (14 watts x 2), where one bulb is a 10 000K daylight, and the other is a acnic.

Basically, it will be a combination of 50/50 and acnic.

Now, with that said, will adding a T5 fixture cause any more evaporation then i currently get (which is very low in my FW set-up)?? They produce very little heat so im assuming not.

Questions revised......

1. What level of water must go down in a nano tank (15 gallon in my case) before it must be topped off.

2. Will the addition of a T5 to the current fiture cause much more evaporation.

Thanks again.
 
I have alot of evaporation in my tank, close to 1.5gallons a day. It wont hurt anything really to let water evaporate becuase the salinity gradually increases. Its kinda acclimating your fish to it, its the sudden top off that will be bad. So I'd reccomend filling it with freshwater frequently so you dont have a large amount to add at once.

I have a 5gallon drip system that will add as much water I want per day into my tank... I have 5-6drips per second going into my sump which comps for the evaporation. It was only $26 for the drip system.
 
wastememphis said:
I have alot of evaporation in my tank, close to 1.5gallons a day. It wont hurt anything really to let water evaporate becuase the salinity gradually increases. Its kinda acclimating your fish to it, its the sudden top off that will be bad. So I'd reccomend filling it with freshwater frequently so you dont have a large amount to add at once.

I have a 5gallon drip system that will add as much water I want per day into my tank... I have 5-6drips per second going into my sump which comps for the evaporation. It was only $26 for the drip system.
Click to expand...

I was actually wondering the same thing.

By the way, since your adding such a small amound of water daily, do you heat it, or just throw it in at room temperature??
 
room temp, a drop wont affect the close to 75gallons of water. if anything i'm hoping it cools it down since i have haldes over the tank. I'm setting it up today if anyone wants me to post a picture
 
wastememphis said:
room temp, a drop wont affect the close to 75gallons of water. if anything i'm hoping it cools it down since i have haldes over the tank. I'm setting it up today if anyone wants me to post a picture
Click to expand...

What about for nano tanks in the range of 15-20 gallons?

Pictures? Sure!!
 
You pick the drip rate... and a drop of water will change the temperature, but you probably couldn't get accruate enough to notice it. You could set the drip to do once every 10 seconds probably for your tank and thats all you'd need. The continer they sent me has a small leak... I have to drain the tank tomorrow and try to tighten it, pictures this weekened of after exams next week :) :thm:
 
wastememphis said:
You pick the drip rate... and a drop of water will change the temperature, but you probably couldn't get accruate enough to notice it. You could set the drip to do once every 10 seconds probably for your tank and thats all you'd need. The continer they sent me has a small leak... I have to drain the tank tomorrow and try to tighten it, pictures this weekened of after exams next week :) :thm:
Click to expand...

Pics would be great!! I allways wondered how drip systems worked for both top off and accimulating new fish.

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
www.marinedepot.com has a product called "pices pro acclimator" its just a simple tube that hangs into your tank and comes out toward the floor, it has a ball valve to choose the amount of drips per min and you drip it into a bucket with your fish in it... its kinda different from the drip for top off... becuase the top off one is only freshwater and its connected to a seperate container next to your tank.

Neil
 
Ya gotta be far more anal with nano-tank top-offs!

As a example, compare 10 gallon tank vs. a 100 gallon one. If 1 gallon evaporated from each tank, you'd increase the salinity in the 10 gallon by 10% whereas it would only go up by 1% on the big tank. Given that a changes in specific gravity of 0.002 or even less (from say 1.025) can affect more sensitive species like shrimp (personal experience), you have to stay on top of top-offs like an eagle.

Drip systems are great for smaller tanks. A little inconvenient for large ones though.
 
Why are they inconvent for larger tanks? I drip a gallon a day, and I just refill the container once a week...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom