Those of you who have retrofit MH and/or T5's in canopies, what do you use to keep them from over heating your water? I've been looking around at different fans and am trying to figure out what would be best and most reliable at the best price. I've so far found a few things if you would take a look at them and let me know what you think. If you do or don't like either for whatever reason, please let me know. Also, if you use or prefer something else, please let me know that as well.

Here is the first. (the word first is a link) It seems more retrofit than the others I have been looking at and has a good price. However, I am a little nervous about how this would work. The seller is implying the fan (which isn't very thick) would be up close to the canopy inside, without any where to "suck" the air from seeing as it would be blocked on one side by the wood. Other than that, it seems like a solid fan kit.

The second is here. (the word here is a link) It seems nice, and fancy enough, but I get the feeling it is overpriced and that I could find a simpler version somewhere for less. Unfortunately, I can't on the internet. Also, if it the fan will be a clamp fan (like this one) I want to make sure the clamps are reliable. I would want to make sure someone has used and liked this type of fan before I ordered it.

So there are my two searches so far. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. Any and all information is appreciated!!

Thanks,

Kylie

I if you want cheaper fans check out newegg, they always seem to have good deals. But if you silent fans check out nanotuners, and get the silentX fans proablly the quietest fans, but you will pay for the quality.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Newegg also carries the silenX fans too. I believe flyingmoray picked his fans up from them just not sure which ones he got.

Can these be installed to the inside wall of a canopy without cutting out a chunk of the wood? I really don't want to cut into my canopy at all

+1 for NewEgg. What I like about NewEgg is their ability to search by things like the amount of noise they make, their size, etc.

--AJ

Posted By Kylie on 03/09/2010 10:07 PM
Can these be installed to the inside wall of a canopy without cutting out a chunk of the wood? I really don't want to cut into my canopy at all

You have to have a place to vent the air.  You can do it in such a way where it doesn't look bad like mount them in the top.  Here's some pics of the 120mm IceCap fans that I installed...I thought it turned out pretty good.




--AJ

Posted By Kylie on 03/09/2010 10:07 PM
Can these be installed to the inside wall of a canopy without cutting out a chunk of the wood? I really don't want to cut into my canopy at all

hmmm, you are going to want some sort of ventilation is my guess, otherwise you will be blowing hot air around.

now from my electronics experience, when i install cooling fans i usually have 1 that blows air in and one that draws air out.

Posted By mthomp on 03/09/2010 10:11 PM

Posted By Kylie on 03/09/2010 10:07 PM
Can these be installed to the inside wall of a canopy without cutting out a chunk of the wood? I really don't want to cut into my canopy at all

hmmm, you are going to want some sort of ventilation is my guess, otherwise you will be blowing hot air around.

now from my electronics experience, when i install cooling fans i usually have 1 that blows air in and one that draws air out.

Ditto to the one in/one out strategy...

Yea you'll defintlaly wanna have one that pushes, and one that pulls air, you will need to cut holes in the canapy to get it to actually cool correctly, or like stated above you'll just blow hot air around.

I agree one in one out. I have used the fans in the second link and they work good.

+2 on newegg.

I've ordered 2 in the past for my last canopy and just ordered 3 of their silenex fans(ordered a power source/controller from another site). I currently only run metal halides, so I bought a 80mm fan and 2 120mm fans. I did 2 diy lumenarc's for my two 400 watt halides and a diy lumbenbright for my 250 watt halide. I mounted the 80mm fan to the top of the lumenbright to pull the hot air away from the bulb(I'm procrastinating on doing this to the two 400's, so I just have an industrial centrifigul fan blowing the hot air away now). This works double because it also takes away the light that reflects back on the bulb, so, in design, the bulb only shines on the tank and not back on its self, if that makes sense.

Ok, I'm sure that was pretty confusing, so here's some pics to explain(and also show off my handy work).


DIY Lumenbright with 80mm fan for the 250 watt halide.


Inside look of same reflector. Notice where the fan is positioned as to not waste any useful reflection from the bulb.



DIY Lumenarc with 120mm fan for one of the 400 watt halides. Once again, just pointing out that I'm quite the procrastinator, I don't even have this reflector on the second 400 halide I'm running now, let alone have the fan mounted to it.

Wow, those are nice setups you all have! I'll talk to my dad and see what he has for tools and what we can do with my canopy. Luckily, its still in pieces so it shouldn't be too hard to cut. I'll definitely check out the silenex fans you are talking about. Are other fans with similar design ok also? For example, I've found a few Coralvue and other fish brand fans that have the same shape but are less expensive. Is there a big disadvantage to these lower cost fans that I'm unaware of?

Thanks again for all the help!!!!!

Ok, another quick question.. What do you use to power the silenX fans? I'm very new to all things electrical so I'm not sure what sort of power supply or ballast you would use for these fans. Could someone please point me in the right direction? Thanks

Usually the higher the price the quieter the fan and how many CFM they either push or pull of air. Usually though with the big the CFM the noisier the fans are. SilenX are supposed to be the quietest fans out there, and are well known for being quiet. Just depends where your tanks at, mine is in my bedroom, so I like to have a quiet fan, but if its someplace where a little noise is okay than you don't have to buy the most expensive. CFMs is also a important thing to look at, the more CFMs the more air that will be moved through the fans, which will be more cooling.

Never mind about the power supply for the silenX fans. I figured it out.

So now my current question is what size of silenX should I have? We've concluded I should use 2, one flowing in, one flowing out. But what size? AJ, you mentioned you used the 120mm. What made you decide to use 120mm as opposed to something smaller. Most of the places I'm looking at have 120mm or 80mm silenX fans. Which would work best for in the canopy of a 40g breeder with 2 x 150watt MH with 2 x 36watt T5?

I have 2 80mm fans on my 40 breeder and do just fine temp wise, but in general the larger the fan the more air movement.


-Box