Cooling- sump vs hood

[John]

My clip on fan just quit on me. It is one of those student clip on types.
It was clipped on to a riser pipe pointing to the back of my aquarium hood.
Underneath the hood I have ~ 650 watts of lighting in the PC/Halide flavor.
Using this setup I have been able to maintain 78 degrees F.

I have just recently added a custom sump. I got the inspiration to build
this after looking at Marc's site. Seeing that I now have the sump, can I
get away with just putting a fan underneath the stand blowing into the sump
for my cooling
needs? Is there a negative effect on bulb life if I choose not to add fan
cooling to my hood?

tia

[Dragon Slayer]

IMO cooling the hood is the best way to cool the tank, your removing the
heat before it enters the tank.


while some may say cooling the bulbs gives off less light par i dont agree
unless your blowing in cooled air from an A/C.

hth
kc

[Rod]

Evaporation is the key. As long as the fans are blowing accross the water
surface you will have evaporative cooling. IME, IMO and an many other opinoin
and experience, 78 degrees is too cold.. If you keep your temps at more of a
normal reef temp (82-84) it will be easier to keep the tank at that temp, and
when the temp does spike to 87, there will be no problems.. If you keep your
tank at 78 and then spikes to 87, the animals get upset. The animals will
thrive more at normal temps, because they arent using as much energy trying to
keep their metabolism up to where it should be. That energy can then be used
gor growth ;).. Here is a great article that explains thing much better
http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1997/nov/features/1/default.asp
Rod Buehler
www.asplashoflife.com

[Raymond]

"Dragon Slayer" > wrote in message >...
> IMO cooling the hood is the best way to cool the tank, your removing the
> heat before it enters the tank.
>
>
> while some may say cooling the bulbs gives off less light par i dont agree
> unless your blowing in cooled air from an A/C.
>
> hth
> kc

Not cooling the flourescents will shorten the bulb life noticeably.
The problem of reduced par was with metal halid only and my
understanding was if the fan was pointed directly at the bulb which
prevented it from reaching some minimum bulb tempature then the light
output was reduced.