PC parts people? Help making a strip of PC fans for aquarium light ventilation/bulb cooling.

I have a big 300gallon reef tank up and running. Ended up with a hood when I wasn't going to. Basically enclosed except for a 8 inch strip along the back wall of it. (Thing is 6x3x1 roughly) Then theres 2 strips of open air along the top but are only 2 or 2.5 inches wide roughly.

I dont really have heat issues with the water, it's more for keeping the 8bulb T5 and ballasts cooler. Cutting big squares in the side and mounting big fans there is not a possibility. (That and some reefers seem to have found the cooling peters out by the middle of the bulb creating uneven aging of the specialty reef bulbs phosphor coating) Currently I just have a big tall/narrow floor fan on top blowing and it's really loud, jiggles the aluminum reflectors etc, and more importantly I have to manually turn on since on a timer, it needs a button press to turn on, no rocker switch)

Electricity is devil voodoo to me. Without having to twist a bunch of wiring together with a million wire nuts. would it be easy to make a long row of PC fans that runs on preferably one power supply and possibly on a potentiometer? Since gap so small though I assume a 120mm fan would be too big right? be blowing against the hood it's sitting on basically? Also, I'm trying to maintain the fans as quiet as possible, so I was looking at Noctua's, but at $20/per 120mm fan and trying to span 6 feet......

Know any quiet but still more than a mouse fart output fans that are daisy chainable easily ideally with basically plug and play going to a power source and dimmer for speed? I figured just the center strip to run them across. Not sure if I'll need them edge to edge, or really if say like 6-8 spaced out would be plenty.

I did consider trying maybe 2 of these for $70 and calling it good. But sounds like I'd probably be getting dead fans before long and too big for the slat. Maybe could mount to the back opening but not designed for it and falling in tank or out and breaking a concern.

https://www.amazon.com/Bionaire-Comp.../dp/B00BDS4M0W

LED lighting might be the ticket.....

I have some blue led strips just for the psycho trip rave party effect when I turn out the T5's. Was going to be primary LED but got a good deal on some LET lighting and more I've researched and others have experimented I agreed that while LED is great under blues for looks, the more broad spectrum of T5's is better for growth and long term whatever. (Under LED with varying lenses more extreme shadowing so kinda some more oddball growth patterns with SPS, vs T5 light kinda pervades better and gets undersides of coral. A led thats say 420nm (assuming it is actually shining at the spectrum advertised is pretty narrowly right on that wavelength vs a blue plus t5 bulb does better about hitting 420 as well as say 460 down to 380. (Numbers made up on spot as example)

I might drop down to 6 bulb at some point for a couple full on big led fixtures, but dont have a reason to justify cost for now. Worst case scenario I could not even both running the fan, I'm just going to go thru ballasts and bulbs faster.

I totally missed the word reef at the beginning...that changes up things quite a bit to keep your coral growing. I'm a freshwater kid with plastic flowers and an Ironman figurine in the tank....

Fans on computers work by blowing the heat out while sucking in cooler outside air, not blowing air on only. They essentially intake the outside air and blow the hot air out. What you're describing would be inefficient and taxing on a PC fan, if I'm understanding you correctly.

Can you post a pic so we can get a better idea of what you're describing?

I can later. Certainly not like a pc, but still reasonably enclosed space. IE top slats with only air escape out the back.

If theres something better than pc fans I'm ears, but issue is narrow top slats, and difficulty mounting to the back area. I certainly do want to blow out to in, just because the saltwater air will kill fants quicker if left sucking the air thru them from humid side.

The big pc fans are popular drilled into side of hoods, but I dont want to kill the sorta clean look I'm going for. (And tank running to taking hood off now would be a PITA and cant do in place or else nasty wood would get in water.

Pictures might help. I have built banks of Pc fans before for various light cooling projects e. They are fairly weak with any form restriction though. Maybe get a more powerful ventilation type fan and do some discreet venting tied into the slats

eta
I used a whisper series bathroom fan that is pretty much inaudible in a normal room and it kept 200 watts of lights cool when I was growing habaneros in a cabinet last winter

I'm thinking you need full-spectrum LED lights that won't give off heat.

Once you post a photo, I'll have a better idea of what we're talking about. :)

Try blowing more bubbles. Water cooling is better then air

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Originally Posted by earplug

Try blowing more bubbles. Water cooling is better then air

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What are you talking about? I don't want salt spray hitting the lights and bubbles in a salt tank is kinda not considered a good aesthetic.


@grey, I went into above kinda why some in the hobby are starting to shy back away from led for corals. Particularly in large tanks where getting full diffused lighting with leds is trickier. (Need tight lenses to penetrate deep but wide to actually get coverage, the cost to put like 6 high end 3 foot units over this thing would be astronomical. (Like @ 5-800/e)

All depends on how deep the corals in your tank are found in the ocean wether they ever get a wider spectrum of light.

I'm guessing your trying to have a heavy stoney coral tank?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by fitz19d

@grey, I went into above kinda why some in the hobby are starting to shy back away from led for corals. Particularly in large tanks where getting full diffused lighting with leds is trickier. (Need tight lenses to penetrate deep but wide to actually get coverage, the cost to put like 6 high end 3 foot units over this thing would be astronomical. (Like @ 5-800/e)

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Ah- yikes, that's far more expensive than I thought. I hadn't thought about the water diffusing the led lighting, either. Hmm. Okay, what about those little clip-on fans? Instead of one big fan that's noisy, the little clip-on fans may be able to cool down those lights some an be a bit cheaper, since they run @ $10-15 each. You could plug them into a power strip with a timer. Does your aquarium hood have a sheet of glass between the bulbs and the space above the water's surface? If not, you may want to think about getting a slim sheet of plexiglass to slide between the two.

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Originally Posted by TheGrey

Ah- yikes, that's far more expensive than I thought. I hadn't thought about the water diffusing the led lighting, either. Hmm. Okay, what about those little clip-on fans? Instead of one big fan that's noisy, the little clip-on fans may be able to cool down those lights some an be a bit cheaper, since they run @ $10-15 each. You could plug them into a power strip with a timer. Does your aquarium hood have a sheet of glass between the bulbs and the space above the water's surface? If not, you may want to think about getting a slim sheet of plexiglass to slide between the two.

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The clip ons could work to at least get either end where the ballasts are. Most little clip ons arn't all that quiet though. Reefers are weird and value mega silence. (If fans off, can barely hear a little trickle despite the tank having like 2000gph of flow in it. Certainly would be simpler than trying to clip up a bunch of fans and make sure I have right power supply. As I said it's voodoo so someone has to hold my hand or be off the shelf.

Plexi cuts down on PAR and I imagine can filter certain spectrum out. Salt tank hoods are sorta high. But we just learn to deal with bits rusting out over time. Every year or so hood will come off and semi torn apart to clean the bulb reflectors.

@Fire. Yeah still a mixed reef, but vs my start with softies into lps and a sps or two. It's now buncha sps high with a smattering of LPS on sand and frogspawn/hammers/etc. Also got some rock flowers and a few anemones. Currently at 8 bulb T5 (80w) and 2 of the big stunner strips just for blues for viewing or before lights on. I'm actually reducing my lighting period because it looks like stuff is starting to bleach out a bit. May even end up going to 6 bulb and like I said, get some fancier blue leds for techno rave party. (Was cool a garf bonsai I sold when I had to move a couple years ago came back to me as a full colony. Saw today a guy who got an orange ric of mine is now like 12 of them and the mother is huge)

Wish my phone could take non washed out video of it for yall.

PC case fans can be inexpensive but they run off 12 volt DC

http://www.microcenter.com/category/4294966926/Fans

I had LED's on my reef tank and was able to keep both hard and soft corals. They give great light throughout the tank.

I would go ask at a decent hydroponics store. They deal with this stuff all the time.