So this was just an interesting idea I had. I will say right off the bat that it may be unfeasible due to the efficiency of TECs and the number you would need but it may work well at the same time.
I got to thinking about this because my girlfriend picked up a pair of axolotls! They are very cool and speaking of cool they need a tank with fairly low temperatures. Currently she simply has her ac cranked up to where its a bit chilly and that with evaporation keeps the tank down to 70f. I was looking into chillers and noticed that they are very expensive (atleast compared to heaters). Being a fit fanatic I know about thermoelectric coolers (TEC) and came up with an interesting idea. TECs are not really coolers they are heat pumps. They move heat energy from one side of the plate to the other. This means one side of a TEC gets hot and the other side gets cold. To get the benefits of the cold side you really need to pull heat from the warm side. The more heat you pull the more the cold side can cool. This allows an interesting possibly. If you had two tanks side by side and plumbed one to the hotside heatsink and one to the cold side heatsink, you would have a tank above and below room temp. It would save you from needing a chiller and the system would do double duty for a tropical and cold water setup.
Again this may not be feasible for large tanks because of the number and size of TECs it wouod require. It would certainly be possible for small tanks. Just an interesting idea!
I got to thinking about this because my girlfriend picked up a pair of axolotls! They are very cool and speaking of cool they need a tank with fairly low temperatures. Currently she simply has her ac cranked up to where its a bit chilly and that with evaporation keeps the tank down to 70f. I was looking into chillers and noticed that they are very expensive (atleast compared to heaters). Being a fit fanatic I know about thermoelectric coolers (TEC) and came up with an interesting idea. TECs are not really coolers they are heat pumps. They move heat energy from one side of the plate to the other. This means one side of a TEC gets hot and the other side gets cold. To get the benefits of the cold side you really need to pull heat from the warm side. The more heat you pull the more the cold side can cool. This allows an interesting possibly. If you had two tanks side by side and plumbed one to the hotside heatsink and one to the cold side heatsink, you would have a tank above and below room temp. It would save you from needing a chiller and the system would do double duty for a tropical and cold water setup.
Again this may not be feasible for large tanks because of the number and size of TECs it wouod require. It would certainly be possible for small tanks. Just an interesting idea!
