Help! Fish Emergency...

[Nyboy]

Whats a swamp cooler?

 

[digitS']

I just happen to have a diagram of a swamp cooler in the TEG uploads, Nyboy!

The image was used on a thread where I was saying that an "air-conditioned" greenhouse, basically turns the entire structure into a swamp cooler.

Anyway, the evaporation of water is used to cool the air rather than refrigeration. Swamp coolers are very efficient in arid weather when evaporation can take place easily. GardenGeisha lives in the right part of the country for them, that's for sure.

Steve

 

[Nyboy]

Thanks!

 

[897tgigvib]

Another description of a swamp cooler is, they are those box looking things on top of a lot of mobile homes. Usually about 4 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet.

Basically the walls of the box consist of some material or screen work that can do 2 things: allow air in easily, and, allow water to drip down.

Water drips down the sides of the box while a fan sucks air through and blows the air into the mobile home. The air, as it goes through the sides of the box gets cooled off by the water. See, water cools off as it evaporates. One of those physics/chemistry things.

Swamp coolers don't make as much cold as an air conditioner, but they also don't require a compressor, so they cost less to run, and they come with the trailer.

Swamp coolers are nice on a hot day!

=====

Yes, some greenhouses are cooled in summer by the same principle. Usually one of the walls has an area of it with these free flowing pads that are kinda like heater air filters except designed for water to drip down them. The opposite side of the greenhouse will have powerful exhaust fans that blow air out of the greenhouse. That causes air to enter the greenhouse through these sopping wet pads. That physics/chemistry rule thing kicks in and the air is cooled as it enters the greenhouse.

How'd I do with my Neanderthal somehow stuck in the 21st century explanation?

 

[digitS']

You did fine, Marshall. Especially the greenhouse information.

I know it isn't what you said but a swamp cooler isn't just on mobile homes. Really, most all of us in arid places should have them instead of AC with freon (that's what's in them, right?). I'm just lazy with setting up a little AC in my living room window but then I have large deciduous trees on the south and west sides of the house. It doesn't need to be a very large machine.

Used to be, I had a swamp cooler to cool the upstairs bedrooms in another house. It failed soon after I moved here but it sure wouldn't have been expensive to replace. One problem is what GardenGeisha has described. Sometimes that water system is plugged or the float fails and they will flood over. Or, they may just spring a leak.

Very large buildings are usually cooled by swamp coolers. I wonder if that isn't true everywhere.

Steve

 

[canesisters]

SO.... how are the fish????

 

[GardenGeisha]

So far, the fish seem fine. I'm going to run out this morning and buy gallons of spring water and gradually ease them into the aquarium because next Monday the low here is to be 32 F, and I want them inside by then. I have to clean the living room to make a spot for their new home. I think I'll put buckets of clean water by the pond and let them sit until the temperature of the clean water equals that of the pond water (currently about 50 F) and then bring the buckets indoors and let them sit until the indoor temperature of the bucket water is the same as that of the indoor aquarium water. I have read it's best to do this in the cool part of the day.

Should my aquarium be in filtered sunlight or is it best to put it in a dark place and have a light for the aquarium?

 

[bobm]

It is a tin roof...

As the rain falls onto a tin roof and starts it's journey toward the roof bottom edge, through the process of erosion , it will first slowly dissolve the coating then the steel of the roofing causing rust. These dissolved molecules will then fall to the ground and then carried wherever the water takes them to.

 

[Nyboy]

Not sure how deep your pond is, I use a heater for livestock tanks keep them out year round. I got mine at tractor suppy for about $35.

 

[GardenGeisha]

My pond is only about 18" deep. I don't dare risk leaving the fish out for the winter. I'm sure they'd freeze...