Large tanks & Humidity

[Redfish]

I have a question about Rogers tank and since he doesn't really keep up with the forum much, maybe Gerwin can answer this. I have seen on Reef Central a lot of people who have large tanks like Rogers, have done a lot with their air conditioning systems, humidifiers, exhaust fans and the like, to help keep the humidity down in their Display or equipment rooms, I am guessing to help with a potential mildew problem, I saw one build of a large tank that ended up with a mildew problem so bad, he had to gut his equipment room down to the studs and start over. Has Roger had any problems along this line or has he had to do anything so that he won't have problems.

[Scott Allen]

I have a question about Rogers tank and since he doesn't really keep up with the forum much, maybe Gerwin can answer this. I have seen on Reef Central a lot of people who have large tanks like Rogers, have done a lot with their air conditioning systems, humidifiers, exhaust fans and the like, to help keep the humidity down in their Display or equipment rooms, I am guessing to help with a potential mildew problem, I saw one build of a large tank that ended up with a mildew problem so bad, he had to gut his equipment room down to the studs and start over. Has Roger had any problems along this line or has he had to do anything so that he won't have problems.

Roger uses an open top system and t5s (now pharoas leds)

The people who have a lot of trouble with mildew and humidity are mostly people with fish rooms and metal halides. Evaporation from MH is much much higher than on t5 and especially LED. And when everything is closed into a small room it makes this issue even worse, in wall tanks look great, they just come with a couple new challenges.

Canopies will sometimes get mildew, but any size tank is equally at risk for that.

[Gerwin]

no mildew issues,
my 180 , no mildew issues and closed in with canopy and inside wall,
Others I have seen..no issue with mildew or mold either,
now my bathroom...thats another story

[sharkbiologist]

I have a 120 setup and had t5s and 2x250watt mh's, nearly 650watts total light on the tank with an enclosed canopy, I was evaporating about 4 gallons per day. I have recently changed to the pharos lights and have cut the the evaporation to less than a gallon per day, not to mention the tank temperature is much more stable with the led lighting. I was experiencing condensation build up around the light fixtures in the living room where the tank is located, and even had a dehumidifier running in the room to reduce the humidity due to the excessive evaporation with little success. The change to LED lights fixed my issues entirely. The pharos lights are amazing, they are very user friendly and have many settings to control the light levels in the tank, unlike halides and t5s where they are completely on or off, the pharos lights can be set to increase or decrease by small percentages over a few hours, not to mention they can simulate cloud cover and have built in moonlight. Its a quite impressive system.