Geothermal for hot desert summer water temperature control?

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T

toffee

Candiru
MFK Member
Aug 21, 2006
159
8
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Texas
Summer temp average close to 110F+ in summer and we often travel during those months. How to regulate aquarium temp? Running AC or chiller can be costly.

I am thinking of going geothermal, or horizontal geothermal by digging a trench of 5' deep 2' width and 4' long. Run say 20' of cooper pipes in the trench. Pump aquarium water though the cooper pipe and loop back to the tank. I understand ground temperatures at depths below four feet stays a constant 50 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit year-round.

Since there's no head, even an average powerhead ought to be sufficient? The powerhead can be switched by a thermostat.

Any engineer knows how to calculate the heat transfer? I am thinking of a 150g tank.

Thanks for helping.
 
In my opinion you should use a heat exchanger, rather than directly running the tank water. You would have a pump circulating the fluids on a thermostat. This would provide a more stable temperature contol on the system. Using this method you would avoid the possible contamination of water by copper.
 
Good idea but first off, running aquarium water through copper pipes is not going to work out so well. Copper is a great metal for heat exchange but it is also used to kill marine growth... A better heat exchanger for this project would keep the aquarium water out of direct contact with the copper. Also look into the cost of materials. Copper pipe is not cheap and it might take a lot of electric bills to make up the difference. Now if it's not so much for cost savings but just to do a sweet project, go for it!
 
you guys are right about copper in aquarium, kills inverts, some plants and algae!

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...ipe-have-in-a-freshwater-aquarium-132203.html

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/diy-aquarium-projects/42734-can-i-use-copper-piping.html

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/diy-aquarium-projects/43691-copper-pipping.html

Apparently, hard water discourages copper toxic. My tap water is extremely hard, we nicknamed them liquid concrete. Still not sure if its worth the risk.
 
Copper and whatever else is in the copper alloy used to make the pipe will still leech into the water no matter the hardness, ph, or whatever.
 
I am thinking of a continuous dripping plus an in ground cooling, like this:
nm-2-1.gif


The constant drip will take care of the evaporation and water quality issues. An overflow directs the water to an underground storage, probably a 55 gallon plastic drum.

In the underground storage, two pumps. a sump pump recyles the water for irrigation. Another pump will be controlled by thermostat, when the aquarium temp becomes too high, cooler water will be pumped to the aquarium via 20ft of pipes that are buried 5' under.

Think this will work? Prolonged power outage will ruin everything.
 
This guy is using geothermal to cool his reef tank, just watch the last 2 minutes.

[YT]http://youtu.be/cwsH2jzmEOk[/YT]
 
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