I have been designing and building aquarium cooling systems since 1983.
Now any one that has considered a cooling system for a marine tank will probably know that Titanium is the only metal that has no adverse effects on the fish.Even food grade stainless steel used in milk pasteurizing has a long term detrimental effect by slowly killing off the beneficial bacteria that help the fish stave off white spot.
So I was rather pleased when I got a request for help from a marine fish keeper in Portugal who was considering building a cooling system based on a 30,000 BTU titanium heat exchanger which was the smallest commercial unit available.For the 500 liter aquarium he had it required a 1 - 1.5 H.P. condensing unit.The question was, how well a condensing unit of that size would work on a heat ex designed for a 2.5 H.P. compressor.Its what we used to call a "suck-it and -see" job.So with the help of an air conditioning installer, he used a 1.25 H.P. R410A air conditioning condensing unit to cool the the aquarium via the titanium heat ex unit.It works perfectly.By way of videos posted he has shown me operating parameters for 'tweaking".
I have always opted for the "cheap" alternative of sleeving a copper evaporator in heat shrink plastic.Which also has no detrimental effect on the fish even after 10 years of use.
But to see a professional cooling system assembled for a home system was very interesting.I have worked on a number of industrial titanium systems for mariculture but the price for a home unit has always been a put-off.
Now any one that has considered a cooling system for a marine tank will probably know that Titanium is the only metal that has no adverse effects on the fish.Even food grade stainless steel used in milk pasteurizing has a long term detrimental effect by slowly killing off the beneficial bacteria that help the fish stave off white spot.
So I was rather pleased when I got a request for help from a marine fish keeper in Portugal who was considering building a cooling system based on a 30,000 BTU titanium heat exchanger which was the smallest commercial unit available.For the 500 liter aquarium he had it required a 1 - 1.5 H.P. condensing unit.The question was, how well a condensing unit of that size would work on a heat ex designed for a 2.5 H.P. compressor.Its what we used to call a "suck-it and -see" job.So with the help of an air conditioning installer, he used a 1.25 H.P. R410A air conditioning condensing unit to cool the the aquarium via the titanium heat ex unit.It works perfectly.By way of videos posted he has shown me operating parameters for 'tweaking".
I have always opted for the "cheap" alternative of sleeving a copper evaporator in heat shrink plastic.Which also has no detrimental effect on the fish even after 10 years of use.
But to see a professional cooling system assembled for a home system was very interesting.I have worked on a number of industrial titanium systems for mariculture but the price for a home unit has always been a put-off.
