brfrags

The fan on my cooling tower is a 140mm/120V computer fan, I could get more cooling if I had more airflow. Cooling capacity goes up with water flow down till flood point and air flow up untill air at top of column is at dew point. Most comercial cooling towers achieve about a 20* difference in water temperature depending on difference in what they call wet bulb and dry bulb temperatures. ie the less humid the air the better it works even if air temp is high. You can go on line and check wet bulb and dry bulb temps for your area. The wet bulb temp is the lowest temp that you can achieve with evaporation if tower was optium and usually can expect somewhere half way inbetween with typical designs. The skimmer is a Deltec 702 which is oversized for my current system but you know can never have too big a skimmer.

Thanks everyone for the welcome. Yes I am a ways away from DC but was urged to join by a fellow richmond reef club member that is also WAMAS member, stating the larger size of the membership and nice tanks. Hope to make it to a meeting once in a while, I am in DC every now and then. The evaporative cooler works fine, have not had a problem with nitrites, of course I also have a deep sand bed (8") and a marcoalgae garden. Have used evaporative cooler on much larger system with good results, much cheaper than a chiller and keeps tank temperature close to ambient. Here's some pic's of my system:

Guess I hit a wrong button. anyway here is the rest of the system: sump - (3) rubbermade 35 gal tubs Lights - tank 1 (2) VHO's,one 250W MH pentant and one DIY 50W led I use this tank for zoa's,clams, and duncan. Flow is medium tank 2 (2) VHO's and one power compact actinic This is used for chalice's and any new corals into system. Flow is medium tank 3 (4) 110W VHO's This tank is my LPS tank. I use it for LPS corals, flow is low tank 4 (1) 400W MH 20K and (2) DIY 80W total LED's This tank is used for SPS,acans, clams, and my bowerbanki's, the flow in this tank is high Pumps - I use a low head dolphin pump that pushes 7600 ghp and also have a mag12 and 9 in the SPS tank. small power heads in the other tanks for turbulance. protein skimmer is a deltec 702 which works great on this system. heater is a 1 kw Ti Also have a evaporative cooler for temperature control (a 6' x 6" dia. pvc tower with water falling down over rubble rock and air blowing counter current. Evaporation on the system 5gal/day

I'm new to WAMAS but have heard many great things about the club and the website. Thought that I would start in this form so that members could see what I have. I have been involved in saltwater tanks in southern california for many years, moved out here to Richmond about two years ago and about a year ago decided to break out some of my equipment collecting dust in storage and start a frag system. Total water volume - 365 gallons tanks: (3) 75 gal 54"x18"x18 acrylic (1) 75 gal 2'x4'x16" rimless 1"acrylic