DIY Chiller Idea

[amehel0]

i have had an idea (or 2) on how to make diy aquarium chiller.

1) Drill 2 holes through a fridge one for an entry point one for an exit point. place a pipe through and a pipe out link the 2 pipes together (seal up the two holes) somewhere along there add a pump and add a bit more heating to counter excessive chilling( especially if u had the chilled water enter a sump filter thing under the aquarium and you placed a heater in the sump just before it exits so perfect temp water goes to the aquarium).

2) get a drinking fountain thing( cooled ones) if u can get them cheap and use that.

[Euge]

the first one should work, it would be better if the pipe in side the fridge was coiled up. so the water actually stays in the fridge for longer.

Second idea i'm sure it will work. if you figure a way how to control the temp and get a continuous flow

[RS2000]

buying a real chiller would prolly be a better solution just cuase of they were made for it and would be more efficient. The fridge solution would chew power like theres no tomorrow (i know some guys that have done that sorta setup for watercooling computers and it chews a fair bit of power since the fridge/freezer never turns off.

[moxxommox]

the whole fridge idea has already been done :P it's on all the PC computer chilling sites, also in alot of DIY'r sites for chillers :P

http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/dyiprojects/l/bldiydonchiller.htm

:P

sorry to burst ya bubble bro! :D


you can pick chillers up for 500 dollars (AUS$) they are cheaper now-a-days... and prolly cheaper to run.. and it also depends on how much your time is worth, if something is going to take 4 hours to do, I prolly would just pay the 400 - 500 dollars :P least you can always resell it...

[amehel0]

not where i live there in upwards of 1000 dollars AU and 600 dollars for a crappy chiller that is only recommended for 200 litres. it just popped in my mind the fridge thing i actually had no idea it had already been done and i didnt even know if it would work .

[WeeNe858]

i still like the hi tech way.. float bags of ice in your tank.. works wonders :nilly:

[Danyal]

one way that i've heard of is to run some really thin walled 3/4" pvc pipe out of the wall behind the tank and down into the ground about 4', then just zig-zag it back and forth through the lawn for about a hundred feet and then back into the tank, you just need a really strong pump to make it through all the 90deg bends.

[amehel0]

i still like the hi tech way.. float bags of ice in your tank.. works wonders :nilly:

yeh that works but id rather the safe option (using bottles bacuse if the baggs break your screwed) when u have an aqua one aquarium ( it has a built in cover.) if u want the bottles to fit well u need to lift it up and problem is that the cover has the light built in and same thing with the power head so that just aint an option to lift up the cover. especially when your running a marine aquarium.by the way it is about a 29 litre aquarium (7.6 galons).

[awk]

one way that i've heard of is to run some really thin walled 3/4" pvc pipe out of the wall behind the tank and down into the ground about 4', then just zig-zag it back and forth through the lawn for about a hundred feet and then back into the tank, you just need a really strong pump to make it through all the 90deg bends.


You just have to get below the frost line to where the soil temp stays the same year round.

[rottbo]

the best DIY chiller i ever read about was with an old AC unit torn apart and rebuilt

[blacksmith37]

The drinking fountains can cost more than a refridgerator (just got a couple for our church).
For fresh water you could used galvanized or bare steel pipe in the refridgerator; normal water changes will easily take care of the trace of zinc. For a salt tank you need titanium or high nickel (30%+) like Incoloy 825 for tubing. You cannot buy these for less than the price of a chiller (salt).
The idea of a long coil of rigid or flexible plastic tubing will work well with a refridgerator dedicated to "fish"; I mean a small bar or dormitory type refridgerator.

[Derpeder]

Yeah but if you had like 3 or 4 tanks to cool you could use one large frig and run all the coiled tubes through the one normal frig and back to their tanks.

One Huge chiller for like 5 tanks.


Shoot I have 5 tanks I need to chill everyday............jk.

[amehel0]

yeh with the ac unit they use copper piping and im scared that if your keeping invertabrates, well that they would die.

[ianwood123]

hi why dont you run it throgh the freezer box much better cooling , just put a stat on the outlet to turn freezer off and on

[chemicall]

If using copper you can buy rolls of flexible copper pipe, already wound up in circles. I seen some rolls at the hardware store the other day but didn't look at the price, It's probably not that cheap.

[yogurt_21]

I simply took some of my pc coolign and applied it. vapochill classic hooked to a gpu waterblock then run through 1/2" tubing to the pond. works wonders.
and it's much cheaper than aquarium chillers especially for the size. to chill 3300gallons it'd cost alot more than your 500$ chiller could handle.

not to mention those are just modded a/c's and fridges anyways. not enough market for a company to build them exclusively. the cost of the manufacturing facility would be too prohibitive unless they also sold a/c's and fridges.


and I'm quite skeptical about the comment on fridges using more power. a full size standup sure, but a mini? and minis are most often used in diy pc cooling. the main power draw for any coolant based solution is going to be the compressor so how the hell would a fridge draw more than a comperable chiller?

at any rate my solution is sub 200$ and chills 3300gallons. if you can find a chiller that does that for that cost by all means get 10!