DIY cooler chiller

[troutman11111]

this is it. everything under tank.i had nowhere to put my aquadose so i put 2 wood shims on top of the styrofoam to hold the weight of 2 1/2gal water,perfect.

 

[reefrunner69]

I took the images from your gallery and linked them, rather than having it uploaded twice

You can edit to add any conentary to each pic.

 

[fishfreek]

Thats a great concept of for a low cost chiller.

Do you have ice water in the cooler?

What size pump do you have on it?

How many feet of tubing is in the cooler?

What has been your average temperature drop from this device?

How often do you have to replentish the cooler with chilled water?

 

[BillyZ]

most of the details can be found in the original thread here

I think he mentioned it cost about $40 in parts.

 

[troutman11111]

you can thank BillyZ he gave me the idea and i did my thing. only ice 2x8lbs bags. penguin power head 550 or 145gph 20ft of tubing. 78degrees is it. 2days the ice lasts.temp in tank was 84, got it to 78 steady.i have a ice maker in my freezer so the ice is free. got to say i had to suck on the hose to get the water going .so a bigger pump would be better,but the temp would also change. it still is working great walt

 

[BillyZ]

Once the tubing is full your pump shouldn't need any assistance though hopefully. I had a thought/concern on this actualy. If you're not using the chiller regularly then the water in the tube could get stagnent. It would probably be a good idea to turn the pump on for 5-10 minutes every once in a while just to flush the water fromt he hose to keep it from getting stagnent.

Of course, if because of your lights etc you are having heat problems regularly, you could simply put the pump on a timer to turn on for 1-2 hours every day while the lights are on to help keep the temp down. This would also keep the water in the hose from getting stagnent.

 

[troutman11111]

i thought about the stagnent water and just kept the pump running. it's not giving off any heat and the refugium seems to like it. when i need to I'll just add abag of ice. your right about the hose filled with water,i can turn the pump on or off and it pumps perfectly.

 

[XXFirefighter]

wow, not to hijack this post but, I'm glad I live on the Central Coast in Cali ! Never in the 90's and never below the 40's....

 

[1SQ]

troutman

can you give me an update on you chiller? Are yous till using it, how long does the water stay cool? What size tank are you using this chiller to cool?
thanks

 

[troutman11111]

the chiller is still working today.i did have to replace the tubing last month because the flow was really slow because the slime/alga in the tubing got to much. i run it all the time. now that summer is here i'm ready to put a bag of ice in. make sure the bag does not leak, it will make it easyer to change ice bags when needed. the water stays at 78 as long as the ice is in the cooler. i got 3 days on 8lbs of ice. my tank is a 75gal oceanic with the 20gal refugium.

 

[BillyZ]

good to hear the chiller's still going strong! Bummer about the algae build up. I wond if there's a way to prevent that... of course, if we could figure out a way to prevent algae without harming the tank we'd be millionares wouldn't we?

 

[mokelly1]

DIY Chiller

I have 4 compact fluorescents - 2 actinic and 2 95,000k on a 90 gallon reef tank. The temperature of my aquarium was reaching 89F. The temperature was so high because we have a computerized thermostat for our home and the temperature in the house is allowed to go to 80F when we are gone for the day.

I placed a small fan to blow the heat from the lamps away from the tank and the temp went o 82F. I bought a swamp cooler and placed it to blow on 2 sides of the aquarium. At first there was no change and then I turned off the small fan and the temp went to 72F. The cooler was $140 and has an air filter. We get cooler, humidified, clean air to breath and our tank temperature is in the proper range.

I don't know what it costs to run the swamp cooler but it should not be much more than a fan. I have to add water about once per week. It makes a fan noise but it is not as loud as other fans.

 

[jasno999]

Has anybody ever purchased a small refridgerator and then drilled holes in it to run lines. Then you could coil some line in the inside of the rfidg and pump water thru it. This would work and I think the cost would be less than a chiller. On top of that you could actually use the fridg for other things.

However the only issue would be temp control. YOu would need to buy a controller or devise a way for the system to operate only when needed. I guess you could somehow hook up a temp switch to control the pump going to the fridg. When above a specific temp pump comes on and when below pump goes off.

Jsut an idea I was thinking about. YOu could do a keg-er-ator and chiller fridg for your drinking and fishy keeping needs.

 

[tropicfishman]

pretty sweet setup ya got there, now come make me one lol

 

[greenmaji]

If you have a UV sterilizer you could put it on this loop I would think.