Chilling the water

OK. so you know me.. always thinking of something....

I have this large chest freezer (6') sitting right next to the sump. what if...

I put a coil of 3/8 tubing of say 50-100 ft in a bucket filled with something.. water (now ice) sand.. something that could retain or help transfer the heat better than just air, and I flowed this water thru there with a small powerhead capable of moving the water thru there slow enough to cool, but fast enough to prevent freezing, I wonder if I could find a ballance to generate a cooling effect for the tank?

the freezer is set to -10*F. It is very quiet and efficient and is already on to keep our sams goodies froze, but has plenty of extra room in it. it has a good flexible seal so I could run the tubes thru the lip on teh back side with minimal transfer so I dont get frost.

If I could drop the water temp 1 or 2 degrees thru the tube and flow maybe 100 gph, to me, it could balance out. use a valve to adjust the pump flow so that if it cools too much, it can be throttled back a bit or use the temp controller to kick heat on if it works too well.

the only thing is that if the power goes out for an hour or so, the water in the tubing could potentially freeze. this could be solved by just pulling the bucket. the controller has alarms on it so I could tell how the balance is working...

 

lol sounds like a science project, but couldnt you just use fans ?

 

well, the sump is in the garage as the wife didnt want any equipment under the stand. the garage is insulated but not climate controlled. how well would 90* air blowing across the sump help? i know it would in the house, across the tank.

yes, it does sound like a science project, but im thinking.. hey, I got it here. the tubing is cheap. I have a bucket I can use, and the space in there.

 

give it a shot. whats the worst that can happen? frozen water?

 

or frozen fish..

 

haha, I doubt there will be anything near that heat tranfer.

 

I doubt that could happen. that would take alot of cold water. plus I have a temp controller with an alarm that would sound if the water got too cold. it can also kick on heaters at 73* if I so choose.

think aobut it though. that water would have to cool at least 45* (to 29*F) to freeze. it is constantly flowing so it should not freeze. just needs to drop a few degrees to provide a cooling effect. you see folks do the dorm fridges for small tanks. this is just a bit larger and colder of a box.

find the balance of water flow thru the tube and it could very well work.

 

;d;d;d

 

yup itll work....i currently do this for my tank...i used salt water in my buckets(2)....get some rock salt like you would use on ur driveway....itll lower the freezing point of the water

 

I'm thinking it might work but what happens when you hit target temp and shut the pump off for awhile? The water left in lines might freeze and you would have to defrost before you could use again.