Poor Man's Chiller

[newerthannew]

But with a ready source of (sorta cool) beer so close to the tank, do you need to fight?

[quicksilver]

What about an ice maker. I have a few icemakers that came off of a yacht(the client did not like the cosmetical appearance of it but they work fine). It is basically a small freezer. Would they work better than the small dorm fridge(They are almost the same size)? If you used the water bath idea it would freeze. The water moving through would be moving through a frozen block of ice. Would this have better heat transfer and produce better temps?

[Geoff]

maybe, hard to tell. what size is the compressor on the ice makers? it should be written on it. in order to keep my water from freezing i use the non-toxic anti-freeze in the bath. this gets it really cold without freezing and possibly breaking the container.

if you use enough tubing it will work. i would still be weary of it if the compressor is less than a 1/5 HP compressor. you will still have the same heat transfer problem, once again it is all about the Ti!!

G~

[reiple]

If you use something with excellent heat transfer rating (an ice maker perhaps) you should also install an automatic heater in case your tank temp go below acceptable levels. The setup however is wasteful power wise.

Drilling a hole into a ref and inserting a tube (or making adaptors) through an inlet and outlet hole is workable. The inlet should enter the warmer area and exit the colder (or near the freezer) area. A saline bath will make better heat transfer media than just air inside a refrigerator. Generally larger tubes are better than small tubes because they will not freeze up and block the flow. Besides saltwater has a lower freezing point than plain water. Also dark tubes are better than transparent ones as algae is discourage.

There are Koolman containers with low energy chillers capable of lowering liquid to 20 degress centigrade. Should work also and is less in the power demands.

[quicksilver]

The ice maker has a 1/5 HP compressor and is made by U-line. In my current tank I do not have a heat issue, but I am working on a larger tank within a fish room. I have a feeling I am going to have a heat issue once all the MH are installed. Sorry Magicman, did not mean to steal your thread. Was not even thinking of the ice maker chiller idea until you brought up the dorm fridge idea. If you would like I could start a different thread. Just curiousity at this point. Thanks again, William

[newerthannew]

One idea I have seen that is worth considering...if you do a dorm fridge setup.
Use the freezer compartment to help cool your water bath/heat exchange.I saw one where they had the frezer packed with soft Ice packs and ran A LOT of tubing thru that to improve the cooling in the water bath, it had a poerhead and a t-stat, seemed like a good idea, if you can use small enough pumps so as not to increase the heating inside the 'fridge by too much.

[Geoff]

this is why you just submerge the cooling element inside the water bath.

trust me on this. a little non-toxic antifreeze will keep the water from freezing, that is as if the compressor is even powerfull enough to freeze a water bath of that size, which i doubt. a 1/10HP compressor is just not powerfull enough to freeze a water bath that has a tube of tank water going through it. not to mention a small pump will help heat the water above freezing.

the small pump is needed to keep from getting hot spots in the bath from the tank water coils.

G~

[ObsessiveProgression]

Try this.... make a gigantonormous external radiator.

Get two large fans... possibly room fans or something like that, and put one right in front of the other, blowing the same direction.

Then run a longass piece of metal tubing between them.... up and down, up and down at least ten times from one side of the fans to the other.

Then run your water hose through that.

Thats exactly how a car radiator works..... and I gotta believe you could make a sufficient cooling device using the same principles.

I believe the entire assembly would cost no more than $40, and about an hour or two of build time.

[Geoff]

just run 200' of tubing in your basement or crawlspace. this would be even cheaper. plastic is your worst enemy.

G~

[reiple]

what about using for the air inlet of your venturi skimmer the air from a ref? I mean put a tube in your venturi air inlet and run this to your ref (put another tube into the ref and run this to the room). Since cool air will be injected there will be some kind of cooling though not so strong. Inexpensive way for a few degrees lower?

[Geoff]

Jimbo? were you going to try this?

theoretically it should work, but how much i do not know. i would think not much since the heat capacity of water is so much higher than that for air.

G~

[Jimbo]

Yes, but have been side tracked lately. My skimmer sucks in a ton of air with the 1000gph pump on it, hay I could run a hose to my freezer, I would know in a day or two if it worked very well I think it should. Ok air hose is now in the freezer, will report back later.

[Jimbo]

Well the 10' of hose does not work well to the freezer or my air conditioner. The air just heats up by the time it reaches the skimmer. But at night with the cold air coming from the freezer the heater would come on more often. I already have my air conditioner close to the tank and it blows over it. That's the best solution so far. But thermoelectric unit might work ok if you keep it close to the air inlet, remember that one side gets hot and needs a fan for cooling, but possible to drop the temp to about 0 degrees if inclosed in a small box.

[Geoff]

when using a thermoelectric cooler. make sure the air blowing over the hot fins does not blow back towards the tank. this is a problem with a lot of the thermoelectric cooling methods. the tanks are so big that it is hard to issolate the cool side from the hot side.

G~

[reiple]

Jimbo instead of ordinary hose why not try insulated hose so your air remains cold as it gets to the skimmer? the reason for this is to keep the ambient heat from being absorbed and the cool air remains almost at it's temperature as it gets to the skimmer.
Since this is an uncontrolled experiment why not?