Chillers

[drag]

any good afordable chillers out there i have 30 gal.. but looking to upgrade to a 100 gal here in about 6 months.

it gets hot here in Texas today the temp got up 2 83 deg. the ac in the house is on and is set to 76deg. but for some reason im noticing the more and more we get summer weather , the norm of the tank is 82 @ day and 80 @ night ... i know high.

any suggestions?? everything ive looked up so far is really high priced. i want to know if theres anything affordable i can buy before rigging something myself.

 

[SkiFletch]

To be honest drag, getting a window mount air conditioner for the room is probably cheaper in the long run (not to mention comfortable for you AND your fish ). Cooling a 30g can be done relatively cheaply but cooling a 100g is EXPENSIVE if you have to do it. The sheer physics and thermodynamics involved makes me shudder at the thought. I know I'd much rather cool down the room with a very efficient modern compressor chiller and let evaporation keep the tank cool (evap is a powerful cooling method). Heck, you can get a good 6k btu window mount air conditioner for less than the price of an aquarium chiller. Gonna cost you less to run as its more efficient, and your tank ends up being more stable when your room temp remains constant.

Have you allready gone through the whole adding more fans to the fixture and pointing fans at the water surface to aid evaporation bit? If not, start there first cause fans are cheaper still

 

[drag]

i forgot to add ony thing that can contribute to heat is the 3 95 watt vho lights. they are set 18 " above the tank. IMO i dont beleive they really are contributing too much to the problem.

 

[SkiFletch]

i forgot to add ony thing that can contribute to heat is the 3 95 watt vho lights. they are set 18 " above the tank. IMO i dont beleive they really are contributing too much to the problem.

Yeah prolly not at that height. I would still try pointing a fan at my water surface though if I were you. Worth a shot. Your rate of evap will go up, but the tank should cool down.

 

[drag]

what kind of fan are we talking about???

 

[SkiFletch]

Mid-sized PC type fan if you've got one, (80mm) or larger. AC/DC, doesnt matter, whichever you feel most comfortable rigging up and mounting.

 

[drag]

cool ill try that first i have a couple of 5" X 5" fans. all i need is a Xfmr and rectifier.

 

[save_nemo]

hi drag,

I agree with SkiFletch. Rather than trying to upgrade your chiller, you should try to improve air circulation so get rid of heat from your lighting system. A few months back, I found this aquarium cooling fan on ebay http/search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZaqua_eworldQQhtZ-1 and installed to my 180g tank. So far, it has worked really well, the air flow is very strong and you can tilt the fan so that the air is blowing directly across the water surface and making my chiller much more efficient and run less often.

Good luck on upgrading your tank!

 

[andywg]

I know it isn't the easiest of things to do, but I do know of one guy in Texas who created a closed loop with water from his tank running into pipes that went 6 feet under a concrete slab (I think the slab was a foot or two thick) and he found he only needed added cooling in the hottest two months of the year, the rest of the time it was fine.

This isn't the easiest solution, and might not even be possible, but it could be worth a shot if you ever have some time and the ability.