# [Wet Thumb Forum]-Chillers



## Sir Plants-a-lot (Feb 16, 2003)

Does anyone have any advice or experience with chillers? I'm looking at buying one in the near future and don't know which are the brands to get or avoid. I'm interested in the Hailea brand, but also have an option to buy a used Teco RA240 for $950 (about $540 US). 

Any thoughts/opinions/advice/insight would be hugely appreciated.

Regards,
Kevin


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## Sir Plants-a-lot (Feb 16, 2003)

Does anyone have any advice or experience with chillers? I'm looking at buying one in the near future and don't know which are the brands to get or avoid. I'm interested in the Hailea brand, but also have an option to buy a used Teco RA240 for $950 (about $540 US). 

Any thoughts/opinions/advice/insight would be hugely appreciated.

Regards,
Kevin


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## ekim (Jan 31, 2004)

Sorry can't really help, but man that seems expensive, although I don't really know!

Are you interested in DIY?
I've heard of people using small bar fridges,
cut 2 holes in the top(input & output) & put as much tubing as you can fit in there, a pump would also be needed!


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## ekim (Jan 31, 2004)

here is one I found for about $120 US,
you might be able to find a used one though!
This way is gona to take up a lot of room though!










1.7 cu.ft. capacity; push button defrost 
Reversible door hinge for left or right opening 
Storage dispenser holds 5 beverage cans 
Integrated handle and 1 slide out shelf for storage versatility 
Front mount temperature control 
Tall bottle door storage holds 2 litre bottles 
Full width freezer section 
Ice cube and drip trays included 
Weight: 44.5 lbs (20.2 kg)


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## Sir Plants-a-lot (Feb 16, 2003)

Well, the new price is around $1700 (nearly $1000 US) so $950 seems ok for a 1-year-old one. Generally I'm all for DIY, and was thinking of using an office-type water cooler or maybe a fridge, but with my luck I would rig up something that leaked both water and freon. So in this case I'm slightly inclined to just pay the money and be done with it, but haven't yet completely decided. I'm really interested in hearing other people's experiences - both in DIY and off-the-shelf chillers.

Regards,
Kevin


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## JamesHoftiezer (Feb 2, 2003)

Generally the DIY route has been tried but is ineffective for most applications.

Big question is the size of the tank, the ambient temperature in the room and the temperature you need to go to.

There are two types of chillers currently;

Thermo-electric chillers are new on the market and use solid state technology to chill small aquariums. They are cost $400-500 and are inefficient for large aquariums.

Compressor chillers are the standard and come in a variety of sizes. They use a compressor simiiar to a refrigerator or air conditioner. They run $500 -$2000. The prices ahave come down recently.

I am looking at $650 models for a 100g requiring ~10F of delta (temp gets to 86F I want to keep it down to 76F)

*James Hoftiezer

Tank Journal - Aquascape ( Latest / Archive )
Tank Journal - Parts and Construction ( Latest / Archive )*


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## Sir Plants-a-lot (Feb 16, 2003)

Hi James,

First, congratulations! The tank looks great and those reds are pretty tough to beat...

Thanks for the feedback. The tank is 72x22x22", and I need a temp delta of about 6C, or 10F. The tank is currently at 32C (ambient room is 34C) and I want to get it down to around 26 or 27. I've had an oscillating room fan blowing across the surface (open top tank) for a couple of days, which brings the temp down to about 28 but also evaporates half an inch of water a day. And looks ugly. 

After considering feedback from Mike (and also from my Secretary of the Treasury) I was rethinking the DIY approach. I can get a bar-fridge for about $150 (US$85) and experiment with it, and if it doesn't work and I need to fork out the money for a real chiller then it's not a huge loss. And if it works, so much the better.

What I had in mind was this:

1st attempt... remove the ice cube tray so that the cold air blows directly into the big compartment and install coils of cheap hose (maybe 50 feet or so). I'd prefer to have the flow siphon through this coil on the way to the canister filter, but if it's too slow maybe I'll install a big power head. i doubt this would pull out enough heat, but it's cheap and easy.

2nd attempt, if #1 doesn't work. Replace the rubber hose with steel pipe to increase the rate of heat transfer. More expensive and difficult. I'm not a pipefitter. Copper tubing would be a lot easier, but I think the water circulating endlessly through the coil would leach a lot of copper into the tank.

3rd attempt, if #2 doesn't work. Cut out the back of the inside of the fridge and pull the cooling coils forward into the fridge compartment. Then build a plastic box around the coils. The tricky part would be building and sealing the box around the coils without cutting the refrigerant tubes. The box would have an inlet and outlet for the tank water, which would then come into direct contact with the chiller coils. I figure this would be pretty close to what goes on inside a proper aquarium chiller, but also the most difficult to attempt.

Anyway, I'd appreciate your opinion on this. I know beans about refrigerators so any advice would be helpful.

Regards,
Kevin


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## Rex Grigg (Jan 22, 2004)

If you do some research on the web for DIY chillers you will see some good ideas. 50' of hose is not going to be enough. Also using a water bath in the unit seems to help. What you want is as long as a time in the cooling unit as you can manage.

I think you are going to need a separate pump for this as the length of hose you will be using will cause a lot of friction and could damage your cannister filter.

Moderator










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## JamesHoftiezer (Feb 2, 2003)

All the results I have seen on the show that this will not work for you. Bar fridges do not have the power to remove the heat that you want. The results I have seen show a delta of 5F on a 30g. That puts at a tenth the power you'll need.

Keep in mind that after you put a room temperature bottle of soda(2l) in a bar fridge it might take it 2 hours to drop a delta of 30 degrees.
Then you take an aquarium with 600l and want to drop it 10 degrees. 
Even if it took a few days to drop the temperature, I just don't feel that it will be able to compensate for your daily heat issues.

If this were a smaller tank, I would suggest a DIY thermo electric chiller. For my 100g I figured I could do a 10 degree delta for about $200 in parts but I would consume 500w of power that would then need to be vented.

I compression chiller is more efficient and vents less heat.

*James Hoftiezer

Tank Journal - Aquascape ( Latest / Archive )
Tank Journal - Parts and Construction ( Latest / Archive )*


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## Sir Plants-a-lot (Feb 16, 2003)

My thinking is that it all boils down to the compressor size. When I look at the tech specs on "real" aquarium chillers, I need something around 1/4hp, which is only 200W. So if I used a bar fridge with a 1/4hp compressor, wouldn't this be able to pump out the same amount of heat? The problem as i see it lies in conducting the heat from the water to the chiller coils. From there, the compressor can do its job. 

But I'm having trouble finding power specs for bar fridge compressors. Googling all over the place and all I find is "1.5 stars energy rating" or "energy efficiency B" etc. Anybody have any idea how powerful a bar fridge compressor might be?

Also, I'm not familiar with the term thermo-electric chiller. Is this something like a Peltier cooler?

Regards,
Kevin


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## JamesHoftiezer (Feb 2, 2003)

Thermo-Electric coolers use peltier modules and heat sinks instead of compressors.

*James Hoftiezer

Tank Journal - Aquascape ( Latest / Archive )
Tank Journal - Parts and Construction ( Latest / Archive )*


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

Well I do not use them personally, but I am now selling Artica chillers from JBJ. They are the only ones that use titanium elements. They are priced very low compared to other chillers in their class: from $600 to $800 for the same size models that run from $1000 to $2000 from other brands. They also have the best warranty in their class, 2 years. Shipping is free, built into the selling price.

Robert
King admin
www.aquabotanic.com


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