JBJ Arctica Chiller

[tangman99]

I'm thinking of adding a 1/4 horsepower JBS Arctica to my 90 gallon reef. My first questions, is that to big? Before adding my fan to the sump, my tank would get up to around 84 degrees. Now with the sump fan it gets up to around 82.5 degrees. I want to bring it down to about 78 degrees and the ambient home temp is between 72 and 78 degres depending on the time of year.
My next question if for those that have them in similar situations, how many hours a day do these things run? I'm trying to calculate how much electricity it will take to run this thing a month.
My last question is I plan to plumb this through the wall and keep it in my laundry room. How much heat does this thing put out?
Thanks.

 

[fishcake]

I am going to be adding a 1/5 jbj $500.00 to my 150 gallon reef, so.... I think you could use the same size easily and save a couple hundred bucks.
The larger the chiller the less it has to work. I believe the 1/10 model will chill a 90 gallon with a -10 pulldown and that one goes for like $400.00 the one your looking at is overkill IMO and will cost you roughly $700.00 Hope this helps you.

 

[tangman99]

I was wonder if it was too big, but I went to a site that has a calculator for the jbj but I can't find it now. It said I needed the 1/4 so that is why I was going with it.

 

[fishcake]

Thats called "upselling"

There is no way you need that much chilling power for that size of a tank.
That calculator is faulty!

 

[ddboy]

I have a 1/4 hp jbj on my 150g plus 40g sump. and it does the job well, so for a 90 would be little big, I would go with a smaller one for your use. especially your area is not that not. My room temperature here in the summer is around 90 degree. And yes, they do put out alot of heat.

 

[scsinet]

The immediate area around my JBJ 1/5 gets pretty warm, but the room it's in is part of a three big open connected rooms (dining, living, foyer), so the heat gets dispersed pretty well. If your laundry room is closed up, it could conceivably heat up some.
1/5 is all you need for a 90, but it won't hurt any to upsize if you are wanting a bigger chiller for a future planned tank upgrade. Many folks that size A/C will tell you that oversizing is as bad as undersizing, but that's because of mold growth, a factor that doesn't apply to water chillers, so you can go nuts as long as your flow rate through the machine is more than the minimum flow rate of the chiller (so you don't freeze up).

 

[tangman99]

I was looking at the 1/4 so it would not work as hard and not run as often. My lfs has the 1/4 and 1/3 in stock and on sale for a good price. Thanks for the help. I'll serious look at the 1/5 HP.