Ghetto Chiller

So it reached 85-88F 'round these parts over the weekend, and I discovered that my apartment turns into a sauna. The tank temps were hitting 80F before I got home (short overnight trip, just my luck).

Not being able to buy a chiller and re-plumb in a day, I resorted to the old fixes.
Step 1) Clip on fan blowing over the water's surface
Step 2) Slightly cool top off water
Step 3) Bucket of chilled ice water (not too much ice tho). Dropped the Fluval canister into the bucket.
Step 4) Leave the heater on in case the temp drops too much!

For once, the canister filter came in handy!

And now its cold outside. Again.

 

I'm about to get myself a fan for the same reason. The other day we had one hot day and the tank shot up to 84! I had to turn the AC on to get it back down. Lucily, the room is small and easily cooled to 70, which keeps the tank perfect. It's gonna be a long summer...

 

im glad summer in australia is finally over we had a scorcher and not having a chiller was a pain but i kept my fan running over the top of my tank for most of it, it dropped the water temp about 1 Deg C per hour.

its the first summer i dint loose any stock 8)

 

yeah, im not looking forward to summer without a chiller or ac!!! this is gonna be a long summer for us aswell......plus i have like 4 tanks to keep up on......crap.....

 

80 that is all your tank got to that is still average mine swings from 76 to 82 on a daily basis

but on second note a diy chiller would be to use say a maxijet 1200 powerhead and say 100 foot of hose laid out or placed in a cooler full of ice or laid out on a cold basement floor

 

I try to keep it at 80 max- I don't have MH lights so it's usually not a problem.

I did consider using an extra length of vinyl/powerhead combo running through ice- that may be a future semi-permanent DIY chiller project

 

Geo-Thermal cooler

I've been toying with the idea of geo-thermal cooling for a while now, and it just occurred to me during all this discussion that if you have access to a hole to the outside, it's not TOO difficult for a reef tank, and a lot more efficient than A/C.

The concept is to use the ground's naturally "coolish" temperature to absorb heat from a heat pump on a hot day, or warm cold water to add heat back on a cold day. For a smaller tank, all you need is a moderately deep hole in the ground, PVC pipe, a pump and a heat exchanger. (peltzer or compressor based)

For a larger tank, the more underground time you can give the water, the better, but the concept is the same. You use the ground as a huge heat sink basically, that you can both push to, and pull from, if necessary.

A more ghetto setup just pumps tank water through the outside pipes as needed to cool, but the risk of a tree root draining my tank is a little too unnerving for me to go the single loop route.

The rub in all of these: Getting the wife to let you dig up her flower garden (You can put it back when you're done) so you can dig a deep trench under it to run piping. Remember to tell her that it will help keep them from freezing in the winter [in a very minor way].

 

Shock- great idea, but I'm in a second story apartment. I have seem a lot of peltier coolers out there. In fact most of the non-compressor based chillers I looked at are revamped CPU heat sinks!

 

Triple Iceprobe Chiller

I have received several requests for an update on my DIY chiller using the Coolworks Iceprobe chiller. Iceprobe uses "thermoelectric" technology and has no moving parts except for a small fan. I have also had a request to see pictures of my three one-gallon jar "nano" setup. So here goes. I will summarize my previous article here, but if you want to read the whole thing, search on "boondocks". The previous titles were "The Ice Probe chiller works! Sort of..." and "Improved Insulation!" Five pictures are attached to this article.

Two things to bear in mind: One Iceprobe costs $100, so if you buy three of them like I did, you are approaching the price of a commercial chiller. I did not buy and have not needed the temperature controller which Coolworks sells. I have a one-gallon freshwater jar which must be kept below 80 deg. and two saltwater (tide-pool) jars which must be kept below 70 deg. I can do this even when the room temperature gets up to 85.

In essence, I connect the two saltwater jars to a homemade "cooling tower" via 3/8" i.d. siphons. The tower is made of scrap acrylic and has inside measurements of 3.5" x 4" x 10" (walls 1/4" thick would be best). The tower is open on the top and contains all three Iceprobes and one Danner #02510 65 GPH 707 mini pump for $13. The pump is small enough to sit beside the topmost Iceprobe if you mount the top Iceprobe with its center 1 5/8" in from the inside edge on one of the 4" sides. When the flow rate is sufficiently slowed down, there will be 6 1/2" of water inside the tower. The pump must be submerged in order to work (it has vents on the sides). Salt water does not harm it or the Iceprobes.

The way I do it, the top two Iceprobes come from opposite sides of the tower and the lowest one comes in at a right angle. Each probe passes through a 1.25" hole in the tower and is connected to a fan with aluminum fins on the outside of the tower (fan is about 4" x 5"). The lowest fan must be flush with the bottom of the tower (they sit on the same table), and the other probes must be mounted high enough so that they do not touch the other probes. Be sure to allow enough room for the plastic nut that screws down over each probe to press it against the inside of the tower. A bit of rubber tubing keeps the pump from touching any probe. Coolworks has made the coating on their probes tougher and more durable, but you should still take great care not to scratch them or let them touch a vibrating pump. Each fan comes with water-tight gasket and plastic nut which seal it to the tower, and a separate power supply which changes standard AC to DC (free).

The pump moves salt water through a 3/8" i.d. tube to jar #1. The tube is tapered down to less than 1/8" i.d. in order to slow the flow rate of the pump to a rate that is correct for my small system. A 3/8" siphon moves water to jar #2, and a second siphon moves water from jar #2 back to the cooling tower. The water level in jar #1 is about 1.75" below the lip and the water in jar #2 is about 2.75" below the lip. Thus, the pump lifts about 2" total head of water. A plastic cover keeps the fish from jumping out of jar #1.

Ignore the advertising claims of Coolworks. I get about 3 degrees F. for each Iceprobe. I get an additional 3 deg. for evaporation and another 4 deg. by insulating the rear half of the two jars. My jars are very thin and made of glass, so heat insulation is important. I used layers of tissue paper, spray starch and white glue to make semi-circular jackets about 1/2" thick to cover the back half of each jar. Thus, my total temperature drop is about 16 deg. below room temperature. Your pull-down will depend greatly on how big your system is, the flow rate you can handle, whether your walls are plastic or glass and how thick they are. it will also make a big difference if you insulate the back and bottom of your tank. It would probably also help if your pump was not submerged in the same water that you are trying to cool (they do give off heat)!

Another reason for the insulation is to keep the hot air from the fans from blowing directly on the jars. I also put a small barrier to steer the fan breeze away from my fresh water jar (even so, it is usually a couple of deg. above room temperature). On hot days, I sometimes need to cool the freshwater jar a bit to keep it below 80. Normally, the pump moves salt water directly to jar #1 as shown in the first picture. I can add a few loops of flexible tubing which sit in jar #3 (the fresh water), but then empty into jar #1, as shown in the second picture. With this "heat exchanger" in place, I can keep jar #3 below 80 deg. and jars 1 and 2 below 70 (tide pool fish need water between 55 and 70).

Now about the attached pictures:

Picture 1: The fish in the left-hand jar is a beta. You may also see the catfish at left and an algae-eater. I use a charcoal- bubbler filter, but I never change the charcoal. Thus, it becomes a bio-filter that can handle a surprising bio-load. The middle jar (jar #1) contains an opal eye, an anemone (left) and a sculpin (sitting on the bush at right). A hermit crab and snail complete the bio-load. Another sculpin can be seen on top of the filter in the right-hand jar. The blob on the rear surface is another anemone (he likes the bubbles). The circulating salt water adds oxygen and increases the bio-load over the bubblers alone. The salt water jars sit on two wash cloths which can soak up all the overflow salt water that may result in the event of a siphon-break accident. Note the tapered tube coming from the pump to the middle jar and the end of the return siphon at the surface of the right-hand jar.

Picture 2: The beta swims thru the "heat exchanger" mentioned in the last paragraph above. It empties into the middle jar so that salt and fresh water never mix.

Picture 3: There is a florescent shaped like a light bulb and a large florescent fixture, both on timers and both shaded by aluminum foil. there is also a desktop fan which seems to provide a dubious amount of additional cooling. Note the valves in the middle of each siphon tube. They are used to get the siphons going. A very cool idea!

Picture 4: Rear view of the jars; note the insulation. One fan sits on the table, one sits on an inverted glass. Why the rubber stopper? No particular reason! Where did I get the cool plastic clamps that hold the siphon tubes and which have teeth that grip the threads on the jars? Go to a department store and look carefully at how they hang a pair of socks on a display rod! Why is there a "bird dropping" on top of the fan? The LED that it comes with is way too bright in a darkened room!

Picture 5: Top view. Note the tiny pump nestled beside the Iceprobe. A few inches of green tubing keep the two from touching. The fan on the left is more or less centered and its probe passes over the bottom probe and below the top probe. Note that the gasket of the fan on the right is flush with the edge of the tower. Tower contents covered by about 1/4" of water.

Power supplies, timers, air pump, valves and air tubing are not shown. Glass jars available at Smart and Final and other stores that sell wholesale sizes. Be careful to get glass and not plastic; price about $6. My girlfriend complains that this setup looks more like a laboratory than an aquarium. What a great compliment!

 

i have started another thread about ac units in the diy forum. let me know what you guys think thanks