DIY chiller questions..

[dboy999]

:help:
I have a large system as some of you may know some may not.I have about a total of 1000 gallons of water in my whole system.A chiller price for this size is nuts.My question is so i doint have to pay if i dont need to is .I have a large double door kenmoore fridge/freezer in my fish room basically holds my fish food.I was think i trying to make a chiller out of it .Through the whole thing freezer an fridge.Questions are has anyone tryed this with any luck?An which type of tubing, an how much lenght of coils of tubing would be adaquit? is it worht the try?basicly probaly 50$ in material compared to over $2000 for the chiller..any help would be greatly apreicated...

 

[dboy999]

nobody has done this??or opinions on it?

 

[macjmc]

Im not a professional but in my opinon it should work great. As long as everything is sealed well I see no reason it wouldnt work. I would think if you ran two vertical coils in it that should be good. Sorry im not more help

 

[dboy999]

thanks for input though..just wandering which type,size,lenght of hose to use ..how much running through the actual fridge/freezer..any ideas cant hurt

 

[cab211]

Well the longer the tubing/more coils you have, the longer the water will stay in the freezer/fridge. So any tubing you want to use would work.

 

[threed240]

One issue to think of is if the power went out. If the water in the tubes becomes motionless it could freeze, and rupture the line. And when the power comes back on, it could be stopped up, or flooding. If you ran it through a type of hose that wouldn't freeze, but would allow it to radiate heat would be best.

 

[scsinet]

I doubt this will work for you.
Even an upright fridge freezer only has about a 1/5 HP compressor on it. Assuming you were somehow able to get a good enough transfer to get ALL of that cooling power into the water, the cooling system simply can't cool that much of a heat load.

 

[wattsupdoc]

I dont know how to do the calculation for that but IMO it will work. I would probably use like a 1/2 flexable line and a powerhead connected to a temp probe and maybe a relay in your sump. (not the relay in the sump but the probe). This way you can control the temp. Myself being a bit of a tinkerer I would just start playing with the amount of hose to use, adding on to it if I needed for longer time in the fridge. I probably would even use the freezer to avoid freezing the line. Just enough dwell time in the fridge to get it down to its coolest temp. There are those on here who I believe anyways have done this with smaller fridges and smaller setups. Cant remember who they where but someone did I believe. Search for DIY chiller and I think you'll fing they're post.
Charlie

 

[dragonboy]

The best possible tube to use is a titatium metal tubing, plastic won't cut it cause metal is a better heat and cold transfer.

 

[dboy999]

thanks all ..was thinking a titanium rather than a plastic would be better..do they make titanium fittings?how many gph ,what size tubing?an does home depot or such sell titanium ..opinions?

 

[dragonboy]

Originally Posted by dboy999
thanks all ..was thinking a titanium rather than a plastic would be better..do they make titanium fittings?how many gph ,what size tubing?an does home depot or such sell titanium ..opinions?
They have all kinds of fittings for them they even have ones pre-coiled up for you but you have to do some searching to get them.

 

[baytran7]

this will work, you don't even need a pump for it, run a siphon from the tank and let it flow through the coils in the fridge and exit out into the sump. I put 3 cpu fans on my tank and put them on a timer for 14 hours a day. my temp went down from 85 degrees to 78 degrees, ventilation helps big time. you may want to consider 6 fans blowing on top of the water on your tank. helped mine out big time.

 

[chipmaker]

Look for a beer cooling coil.......
I don't really agree that the coil needs to be titanium or any other metal., True metal may conduct faster andmore efficiently but other materials will conduct as well. Our side by side fridge / freezer with water in the door and ice maker has nothng more than a plastic flex tube running around inside the freezer and ice compaartment to chill the water temp down to a more desirebale cooler temp for drinking.....somewhere around 55-58 deg last I measured its temp. So if it can pull the temp down to that level using non-metalic tube, there is no reason yu can not pull an aquariums temp down with plastic tube.
I bought a small desktop soda dispenser that has a large resivoir made of stainless steel, and a compressor and some other neat stuff on it, (less carbonator and cabinet) from the surplus center, and have it converted into a chiller for 2 of my tanks and it works fine. My total capacity is 110 gal, but it works....I can actually get my temp down into the low 70's fairly easy with this dispenser setup.
I run the tanks water into the resivoir through a tightly wound up coil or typical plastic polyethylene tube and back to the tank. I use a small Mag Drive pump to provide flow. I restrict flow so water in the tube stays in contact longer with the water in the resivoir thats chilled. Works fine and all of it costs me less than $80 including pump and shipping and chiller unit tube and fittings etc......

 

[dboy999]

well definetly need a pump my 400 and my 75 are in one room an all my sumps/fuge are in the room behind it.was going to put fridge next to the second sump remember the fridge is 6 foot high let me see if i have a pic around of the fish room an youll see what i mean..an were talking about 1000 gallons here.. how much lenght of tubing do you feel is enough..i will have to assume the more the better..an remember i have between the fuge the 400 an the 75 over 2700 watts off lighting total..some some heat is definetly there...

 

[dboy999]

theres the 150 gal fuge then 150 gal. stocktank for skimmer uv etc...followed by another 100 gal stock tank..returns etc..

 

[wattsupdoc]

Again I dont know how to do the caculations but myself what i would do is buy about 200 ft of 1/2 in poly tubing and coil it in the fridge compartment put a large pump on it I think you'll whant one that'll turn a little more than 1000 gallons an hour over so like a mag 12 maybe???? Then a ball valve to dail it back if need be. You wont need to necessarily cool the temp of the water through the fridge down to it's max cooling amount (like 35 deg. far.) but enough to bring the temp down in you're total volume faster than you're lighting is heating it. Slowing the flow down with the ball valve will give you longer dwell time in the fridge and thus cool the water to a lower temp. But it will also slow the flow down and may not give you any better results. So dwell time increase by adding pipe will cool the temp down more and not decrease you're flow. If you want to use less pipe or tubing running it through the freezer would help, to avoid freezing in an outage....hmmmm :thinking: if the coils in the freezer are positioned above the coils in the fridge and the return into you're sump is lower than that, then gravity will prevent that... but you'll need to figure out a syphon break...... :thinking: Set a rubbermaid on top of the fridge with a bulkhead in the bottom and pipe outta that into the top of the freezer, coil you're piping in the top half of it. Then pipe through into the fridge, coil your pipe in that. then pipe out of the bottom of the fridge into you're sump. As long as the coils inside the freezer are above the top of the sump you'll syphon. Now the break.... :thinking: pipe outta the supply tank into the top of the rubber maid with just enough pipe to set down in it just below the water line. wait there wont be a definete water line because you're gonna need to dail this down to meet the floww of the rubbermaid and the tubing, so lust let it dump into the rubber maid barely below the top of it. If power goes out the tubing in the freezer will drain into the fridge's tubing and into the sump, and the water in the supply side will drain back down to the supply tank. This is just my idea on it and how I would start to approach it. Dont know about the numbers though. You might want to use 3/4 or larger tubing to get a higher volume of flow too with a gravity feed. However the larger tubing would not dissapate heat as fast as 1/2in or other tubing. Somebody on here can give you some numbers if they know more of how you plan to approach this. I hope this helps and I may be WAY OFF HERE !! Just brainstorming!

 

[dboy999]

wayoff or not good thorey though.i like, sounds good.only thing i may change is lose the rubbermaid just have it like a closed loop to an from same sump...not too too worried about the saltwater freezing too quickly..not sure ..what do you think as far as fittings etc.. into an through the fridge?

 

[wattsupdoc]

penetrate and seal with silicone.

 

[wattsupdoc]

BTW Id like to see you DT. Got pics?

 

[dboy999]

let me see what i have bin awhile since ive taken some pics..heres the main tank an the 75 seahorse tank..pics are fromlike march or so