kempobmx1
New Member
Hey all. I just wanted to share my great experience so far with the Aqua Euro USA 12g Chiller in my 14G BioCube in my office at work.
I know a lot of people end up looking for an inexpensive fix to temperature issues in a nano tank and I would say this is it.
The issue I was having was that, between the room temperature, heat from the tank lights, and sun light, my BioCube was reaching 85F during the day. Because of this I had my heater turned off all together so the temperature would then fall to 73F at night. Between the high fluctuation and the fact that coral can't survive long-term over 82F, I needed a fix.
I picked up an Aqua Euro USA chiller for $185 shipped. Since it requires an external pump to push water through it, I had a hard time figuring out where to fit a pump inside the limited space in the rear of the tank. In the end I removed the original pump and replaced it with a mini pump with a 290gph (@ 0ft) output. I put the pump in the left-most chamber and had it pump 36" down to the chiller on the floor, then the out-tube from the chiller came back up and I connected it directly to the tank return. It actually ended up being almost exactly the same flow rate out the return as there was with the original pump.
All in all this solution worked great and the only modification to the tank was that I Dremeled out a slot in the back of the tank lid for the tubing. This took all of 5 minutes and was very easy.
When I turned on the chiller, the tank temperature was 82.5F. I set the chiller to 75F to see how well it could chill and within an hour it was already down to 75.9 and dropping. I decided that was obviously good enough and set it up to 78 and there it stayed. I'm so sold on this chiller's ability that I'm actually getting one for my 29G BioCube at home, despite the chiller only being rated for 12g. So long as your chilling needs aren't extreme, I would say this one works on anything up to 30g. Not only can it heat and chill, the best part is that it just automates temperature management.
As a side note for anyone without room to put a pump in their tank: A cheap canister filter is a good, albeit more expensive, method for pumping water through the chiller and only requires you to have two 1/2" tubes running into the tank.
Hope this helps some people.
Zach
I know a lot of people end up looking for an inexpensive fix to temperature issues in a nano tank and I would say this is it.
The issue I was having was that, between the room temperature, heat from the tank lights, and sun light, my BioCube was reaching 85F during the day. Because of this I had my heater turned off all together so the temperature would then fall to 73F at night. Between the high fluctuation and the fact that coral can't survive long-term over 82F, I needed a fix.
I picked up an Aqua Euro USA chiller for $185 shipped. Since it requires an external pump to push water through it, I had a hard time figuring out where to fit a pump inside the limited space in the rear of the tank. In the end I removed the original pump and replaced it with a mini pump with a 290gph (@ 0ft) output. I put the pump in the left-most chamber and had it pump 36" down to the chiller on the floor, then the out-tube from the chiller came back up and I connected it directly to the tank return. It actually ended up being almost exactly the same flow rate out the return as there was with the original pump.
All in all this solution worked great and the only modification to the tank was that I Dremeled out a slot in the back of the tank lid for the tubing. This took all of 5 minutes and was very easy.
When I turned on the chiller, the tank temperature was 82.5F. I set the chiller to 75F to see how well it could chill and within an hour it was already down to 75.9 and dropping. I decided that was obviously good enough and set it up to 78 and there it stayed. I'm so sold on this chiller's ability that I'm actually getting one for my 29G BioCube at home, despite the chiller only being rated for 12g. So long as your chilling needs aren't extreme, I would say this one works on anything up to 30g. Not only can it heat and chill, the best part is that it just automates temperature management.
As a side note for anyone without room to put a pump in their tank: A cheap canister filter is a good, albeit more expensive, method for pumping water through the chiller and only requires you to have two 1/2" tubes running into the tank.
Hope this helps some people.
Zach
