Underground water pipes.

reefforbrains

reefforbrains

Active Member
cheapest bottle of R134a from walmart, DIY just follow directions on the bottle. I am sure I have a few bottles laying around but its not something I want to ship.
probably 50 cents for the little nip-le from a wrecking yard to soldier into the system
There is a host of companies that sell tubing, look around online or even on the bay for something. you should only need about 3ft. Less then 20 bucks I would think.
Just bend gently and slowly so no kinks. Then soldier into your system along with the ni-ple and then refill.
 
coral keeper

coral keeper

Active Member
Originally Posted by ReefForBrains
http:///forum/post/2569050
cheapest bottle of R134a from walmart, DIY just follow directions on the bottle. I am sure I have a few bottles laying around but its not something I want to ship.
probably 50 cents for the little nip-le from a wrecking yard to soldier into the system
There is a host of companies that sell tubing, look around online or even on the bay for something. you should only need about 3ft. Less then 20 bucks I would think.
Just bend gently and slowly so no kinks. Then soldier into your system along with the ni-ple and then refill.
Ok, Thanks!!
 
coral keeper

coral keeper

Active Member
Ok, I wrapped the coper coil with tubing and I fit 20 feet of tubing on it and covered it with styrofoam for good insulation
 
coral keeper

coral keeper

Active Member
Hey ReefForBrains, you know that wire thats white. The one that makes the chiller turn off and on at the desired temp. Where should I put it? In the water?
 
grumpygils

grumpygils

Active Member
Did this ever go anywhere? I just found this thread. Temp at 5 feet in NC is 55 degrees. There is some kind of new plumbing tubing that is guaranteed for 25 years buried underground and is less than a $1 foot. I have no idea how to do the calculations since I don't know the exchange efficiency, but say you had a 500G tank. If you ran about 500 feet of tubing coiled over say a 20' X 20' area five feet down and attached a low flow pump to it. I would think it would have to pump out water in the 65-70 degree range. It would not have to have a high flow, I think the key is slow flow for maximum exchange time. A guy at the LFS says large tanks have been doing this in florida for years? Closed loop and just a trickle. Pump would not have to be that powerful becaus it would only have a head height pressure of 6-8 feet on ~1/2 tubing? He said they actually use heaters to make sure it does not cool too much? I would also use the flow to regulate that. Am I missing something here?
Mc
 
coral keeper

coral keeper

Active Member
I'm probably not going to do the coldwater tank anymore because I went the reef route and I'm using a Metal Halide and I highly doubt my dads gana let me. Back then when I was talking about this, I told my dad instead of doing reef tanks with Metal Halides, I'll make a coldwater tank instead. But people said it will never work, blah blah blah, so I never did it so I just made a SPS reef tank with a Metal Halide.
 
snakeblitz33

snakeblitz33

Well-Known Member
Ugh, I am trying to convince a guy I know that it isn't cost effective enough to do it.
The average temperature here in louisiana at 4ft in the ground year round is 65 degrees. To cool any amount of water, you would have to have several hundred feet of tubing, water hose, pvc or whatever type of tubing under the ground at four foot to have any sort of cooling power for your tank.
I wouldn't do it, it's more practical to buy a 1/15th horse chiller and probably more cost effective.
 
grumpygils

grumpygils

Active Member
I think it is only cost effective for tanks requiring big chillers like >1/3 HP. My next house will definitely have that and solar.
Mc
 
rotarymagic

rotarymagic

Active Member
On a side note.. prices on the JBJ miniarctica have dropped.. so when you give up on this crazy expensive idea, you'll be able to get that chiller relatively cheap..
 
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