to chill or not to chill

[Pkelis]

I have an 80 gal. tank and every summer i have a hard time keeping the temperature down. I have tried several fans for the sump which helps to evaporate my water even faster without much help to the temp. I asked my fish guy about chillers and he said that the cheepest one would be $700. That is more than my tank, filter, and base cost. My fish guy said to look on some forums and see what i come up with. so here i am. any good ideas? Thanks for any help.

 

[hyrookin]

I have the same problems,being in new england in the summer,
the best thing I could recommend, depending on the size
of the room your tank is in,is an air conditioner! thats what I did, and
my fish and my family are much happier. if a chiller cost $700,a decent
5,000 btu a.c. is less than $100! if this is not an option, then try bags
of ice floated on top of water.
good luck.

 

[bgraber]

Check out your pumps and powerheads and stuff.. They could be emitting more heat than they should. THere may be more efficient models you could use.. Just an idea. I've also see a guy use a "mini-fridge" with a big coil of tubing inside to cool his tank.. Said it worked.. Goto the DIY section of reefcentral.com and look under chillers.. Those fridges only cost about 80 bucks or so and you can keep your beer cold in there while youre at it!
On the ice thing, I saw the formula broken down and you'd basically need an impractical amount of ice to make any real difference.. Forget where I saw that..