Evaporation

Nevek

Nevek

Reefing newb
How is there so much evaporation from a sump? undestand the pump probably heats up the water a bit, what if you used a lid on your sump? would it lesson the evap,
 
My sump evaporates at twice the rate as the HOB refugium.

Makes sense, there's more water churning and rolling around through baffles and through plumbing. More water surface exposure = more evaporation.

Don't cover your sump to keep evaporation to a minimum. You WANT the sump open to the air so you can get good gas exchange. Your tank needs to take in oxygen and gas off co2 as well as nitrogen.

I've come to the conclusion that with a sump, you either get an auto top-off or deal with daily top offs of a gallon or more --- manually. I'm currently using a 1g pitcher for daily top-off, but making pans to fully automate my RO unit and top-offs.
 
thats some hefty evaporation happening in a 24 hour period, is it different with a reef aquarium versus a marine aquarium, reefs have all those lights.
 
It's a lot of evaporation because I live in Colorado where it's dry anyway. It's winter time, so the furnace is running all the time. That dries it out even more. My place is about 20% humidity even with 2 fish tanks evaporating over 1.5g of water a day. The air just sucks up the moisture around here. Then figure I have my water going through an overflow and through 2 bulk heads - then through 3 or 4 baffles and finally it sloshes into the sump. Lot of water movement going on. Lots of surface contact.

Thats just the way it is in Colorado. Really dry here, especially in the winter time.
 
Yeah, evaporation in a reef tank can be pretty intense. On my 240, I was losing at least 10 gallons a day to evaporation. But evaporation also helps to cool the tank. It's not a bad thing.
 
Rcpilot said:
Makes sense, there's more water churning and rolling around through baffles and through plumbing. More water surface exposure = more evaporation.

Don't cover your sump to keep evaporation to a minimum. You WANT the sump open to the air so you can get good gas exchange. Your tank needs to take in oxygen and gas off co2 as well as nitrogen.
Click to expand...

Wow. I didn't realize that. I've been trying to device a way to cover my sump for the 125 LOL Guess now I don't have to worry :)
 
Well, don't take my word for it. I can't take the pressure. :faint:

Ask some others what they think. :Cheers:
 
Thats crazy, I'm going to do a sump there's no question about that, I just didn't think the evap would be that much, my aquarium will be in the basement, its not too dry here, so I don't think it will be 1g a day maybe 1/2, so I don't think we'll be too bad, an auto top off is out of the question at this time, maybe down the road.

awsome thanks for all the help guys
 
My wife is obsessed with frogs, right now we have a 3 year old African bull frog, he's about half pound right now
 
Evaporation gets worst in the winter. During the summer months I was evaporating a little under a gal a day. When the temperature dropped I started checking pipes for leaks because I'm up to about 2 gal a day now.

I purchased the floats to set-up an ATO but because I've got room to spare in my sump I could get away with filling it up with extra water and only re-filling every couple of days. But having to add 2 gal. every day is going to motivate me to get an ATO system up and working.
 
I have a glass top on mine right now because cooling isn't an issue. I think I'm loosing only a gallon a day.
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

A
Long green worm with ribbon end ID?
Replies
1
Views
527
Mike
Mike
F
New to marine.
Replies
2
Views
1K
kbuser92
kbuser92
Mike
We're Back!
Replies
0
Views
644
Mike
Mike
Mike
Species Database Photography
Replies
0
Views
707
Mike
Mike
Mike
Software Updated
Replies
0
Views
400
Mike
Mike
Back
Top