Temperary chiller idea. Comments please.

[dburr]

Just an idea for when I go on vacation.
Last year I came home to a colt coral that melted.
It got real hot when I was away.
This year I'm going for almost 2 weeks and I want to be fool-proof when it gets hot.
Before you say get a chiller, it's not in the buget right now. Maybe next year.
Anyway, I figure if I get a big cooler full of ice, 30-50 ft of hose and a PH to push the water thru the hose that is in the cooler full of ice and back to the sump, it should drop the temp a couple of degree's. It's just like the freezer DIY, but cheaper.
I can have someone fill the cooler after 6-7 days with ice, and check on the fish.
what do you think, will it work or am I being to cheap?

 

[von_rahvin]

a cheap way to make a chiller if you have the space is to buy a dorm fridge (120) and just run the tubing into and out of it. there are plans or a link to plans on this site somewhere. otherewise the cooler with ice is a good idea.

 

[dburr]

I figure I would put the heater in the main tank when i leave. It would only go on when the temp drops up there. (at night)
dburr

 

[justinl]

The only flaw in your design is the powerhead idea. To push water through that much tubine you need a very strong pump. No powerhead will do.
I tried the same thing you're thinking of, only with a mini fridge and went through roughly 6 powerheads/pumps before I found something that would work. I was not impressed with the final results of the homemade chiller I made. It just didn't work well enough and was WAY TOO MUCH TROUBLE for the minute difference it made.
You'll probably spend less money and save yourself some frustration by just keeping your AC on while you're gone.

 

[mr . salty]

This idea will not work for a couple reasone.#1,for the ice to cool the water enough to make any diference at all in the tanks temp you would have to have a VERY SLOW flow through the ice.The tank water,even at 76 degrees will take quite awhile to cool down...By having the flow rate at a slow enough rate to work brings on the second problem,You will not be able to replace enough of the hot tank water with cool water to make any temp change at all...Nice idea,but sorry,it has been tried,and has failed....

 

[kelly]

In response to JustinL's post, try putting the cooler at the same level as the tank, this should greatly reduce the strain on the power head. Just a quick thought.

 

[infinsable]

What i've done is put an oscallating fan in front and put a timer on it to stablize the temp When it got to hot. HTH

 

[tvan]

I tried the cooler idea. There is not enough contact area between tne ice packs and tube. I even thought of using dry ice. But gave up on the idea first.
HTH
Tom

 

[richierich2000]

I am using a medusa controler and a pump I have it to where when it gets too hot it turns the pump on and I have a pvc tubing ran in the back of my frige and it keeps my 150 gallon tank at 78 to 79 with 2 250watt metal halides

 

[von_rahvin]

not picking fights with sharks, as you guys most likely know much more than i, but arn't there several place on the web that have the dorm fridge idea. I know why the ice would not work, but what is the difference if you have a conventional chiller or a fridge with 100 feet of tubing in it. Yes i know i would have to work out the physics and the flow rates, but as an acedemic question, what is the difference between the chiller and a dorm fridge idea. ????

 

[drkegel]

I don't know how well a cooler full of ice will work, but I do know that a dorm fridge, properly set-up can be a VERY EFFECTIVE means of cooling your tank.
In thermodynamics, there are a lot of factors that are included in heat loss/gain/transfer. Conductivity of the materials, entering temp, leaving temp, water flow rate (GPM), surface area, and airflow around the coils are all factors which contribute cooling performance.
Plastic tubing is a very poor conductor of heat, and should not be used. However, metals (like copper and aluminum) are very good conductors of heat, but VERY BAD for life in your tank.
I have seen the link and talked to the guy who came up with the design. He gets about 4 degrees of temp drop with the tubing wrapped up in his fridge.
Currently, I am designing my own chiller because I'm going to need one since I don't have A/C. My design does not utilize plastic tubing for cooling purposes, instead I am going to use two small metal (aluminum) buckets lined with plastic garbage bags. The garbage bags will prevent water from actually contacting the metal, but minimize the insulation factor that plastic tubing inherently has. I am builing a "vane" system that will spiral down the sides of the buckets to maximize the dwell time, that is the time of contact the water has with the bucket walls. How I am going to do this cheaply is the problem. I'd like to use aluminum and wrap it with plastic, but to do that would cost as much as a chiller.
The other issue I have yet to determine is the flow rate through the system to maximize cooling.
When I get this project all done, I'll be sure to post pics and all the happy information along with it. That could be a while, I'm still finishing out the semester.....

 

[drkegel]

Anthem, correct, you are still limited, but it's still feasible, and not entirely worthless, and it certainly will work as long as your not expecting a miracle.
I'm only looking for a 10-12 degree temp drop, and I'm sure that's possible with the right internals.
As long as the air in the fridge stays around 45-50 degrees at peak temp rise, it's possible.
A fridge works on the same principle as a window AC unit, just on a smaller scale.
Everything being equal, the capacity of the compressor on the fridge would be the limiting factor in the amount of heat that would be able to be removed from the water.

 

[wolffvet]

I friend of mine used on of those electric coolers to do this one time when the power went out here and it was like 100 outside. It helped drop his temps down oc course he floated bags of ice in his tank also.

 

[broomer5]

I had a dorm fridge once.
With a couple cans of beer or pop in it - nothing was ever cold.
When I fully loaded it up with cans - they were all cold.
So I think an empty fridge with nothing but coiled up tubing, that has warm 80 degree water flowing through it - will not do much to cool a good sized tank.
Now on the other hand - if you had some solid "mass" that was in the fridge, that would become cold and remain somewhat colder than just an empty box of cool air, and ran water through this cold solid mass - would you get better results or not ?
I don't know, just joining in on this discussion.

 

[drkegel]

How much water is in the tank is irrelevant. The coil (the cooling apparatus) doesn't know or care how much water there is. Certainly, it will take longer to cool 100 gallons than it will 10, but the same amount of cooling is required in both cases.
What matters is energy going into the system, can it be removed by the coil.
If I have 1000 watts of heat, and I want to heat 10 gallons of water, it will heat much more quickly than if I use that same 1000 watts in 100 gallons of water, but both will eventaully heat to the same temperature, assuming all things are equal.
I have 384 watts of lights above my tank. Not all of that energy is going into my tank however. If it were, my water temp would be well over 100 degrees. I estimate that 30% of that is going into my tank, or 116 watts. 116 watts = 396 btu's. I have one pump that adds another 50 watts I'd estimate. The heater can be neglected since it won't be on when the chiller is on. So I have 567 btu's I need to remove from my system, plus make up for the ambient air temp.
My fridge can remove 1100 btu's. So I can easily overcome the heat from my lights and pump. How well I design the "coil system" inside the fridge will determine how well I can cool my system to make up for the ambient air temperature.
The links supplied by anthem misunderstand the principles of heat transfer and thermodynamics. It is not a function of time, it is simply a matter of energy in vs. energy out.
The first day of thermo class my professor explained the three laws of thermodynamics:
1. You'll never win.
2. You'll never break even.
3. You can't quit.

 

[bammbamm74]

Quick question for those of you that think tubing through a cooler full of ice won't work. Ever go to a college party? They have the Keg taps in the side of a cooler. Those are Jockey boxes. They work GREAT. Even if the beer is about 80 degrees. Granted, the CO2 will lower the temp a little bit before it goes through the box, but the beer comes out mighty cold. All those are is a cooler, filled with ice and there is a lot of copper tubing underneat and aluminum plate. Both metals are great heat conductors. Granted, you can't use copper for your tubing. But I think what might not make it work is that the plastic tubing is an insulator, right? So it'll keep most of the heat in the water.... Just my $0.02. not sure if it's right though.

 

[drkegel]

80 degree beer???? That's NOT GOOD for drinking. College parties up here use trash cans with a keg in it filled with ice (or snow) and a standard hand pump. We're poor and can't afford the CO2 system, it would probably get stolen anyway. We like our beer a lot colder than 80, like around 35 or 40. I've also seen the system (what we call a "kegerator") where the keg sits in a fridge and the tap handle is out the side.
Maybe I misunderstood what you were getting at. Your right though, plastic is a very poor conductor, while copper and aluminum are both very very excellent conductors of heat.

 

[drkegel]

I've played around with several designs, and am still modifying. I'm set to start construction next weekend.
Yes, using a fluid such as anti-freeze or so on would be better than air, and I have lately incorporated that into the design. Unfortunately, the better the design gets the more money it costs. I'm working on finding a middle ground.
On the really hot days, I can also through ice bags or ice bottles in the system to help it cool. And that way it's not in the main tank or the sump, it's completely out of view.

 

[bammbamm74]

Well, 80 degree beer, I'm talking about the keg on the ground. You just can't drink it the next day because keg beer isn't pasturized and it'll go bad. But with the jockey box, they chill the beer down to like 35 degrees or something. Pretty awesome. My buddy has a kegarator, but a full size fridge with the spout on the front door, pretty cool.
But, running the coils through water or antifreeze in the refridgerator, isn't it easier to cool air, not fluid. See, if the water is taking out the heat in the tubes, well, you're just heating up more water which means the fridge has to work harder to cool that big pool of water down that has a constant heat source going through it. Seem like it never be able to cool the water, that is of course, if you run the cooler only during the day, letting the fridge take the heat out of the water at night. <img src="graemlins//confused.gif" border="0" alt="[confused]" />

 

[pat]

ok guys, time to throw a new twist on this subject.......what if you could find like a plastic radiator???? then took an electric fan and blew through the radiator.....it would not have the meta to bother the tank on the good side, but would not have the metal to cool either.......but the radiator would break a high flow of water down to small sizes, keeping the flow rate the same from the top to the bottom, but just not in one big stream, then it would cool down just from the fan???????? ok dont get all pissy cause i havent looked into this at all but the idea just popped into my head.......i live in los angeles so im pretty interestred in this topic now