[reefclown]

Been chating to fellow UK reefer this evening and from the midst of our conversation we came up with the following:

If the back 2-4 inches of a tank/sump were to be partitioned off with a 4-6mm sheet of glass and the partition was used as a chilling compartment how effective would it be?

The concept would be to have tap water flowing through this partitoned section controlled via a temp controller and solenoid, with the output on the other end being fed into the garden or waste ( this assumes you are unmetered and not overly concerned with pumping water down the drain).

The partition glass would act as the heat exchange media between the tank water and tap water. Internal weirs in the partition would ensure that the tap water got replaced effectively, and allow a thinner sheet of glass to be used by ading to the strength.

Both ends of the tank/sump would need to be drilled, but other than powering the temp controller and solenoid (/s backup) there would be no running costs.


for the environment concious the system could always be moded to only replace tapwater on a temp differential basis , and for the severely environment minded the water could be pumped into some underground pipework to be chilled rather than dumped, in the same manner as you could do with any form of heat exchanger.


Anyone tried this method or a similar derivative, or have any thoughts on the concept. Would it work ?

 

[Reefer Addict]

I have a chamber in my sump where I can put frozen water bottles. The water runs over them and then into the pump to be returned to the tank. It does a fairly good job with a 55 gallon and we only use 3 16-oz bottles and 1 24-oz bottle throughout the day.
I don't worry about it getting too chilled, because if it gets below the temp the heater is set at the heater kicks on and keeps it from dropping further.
I find this works well for me, but I doubt it would do any good on a 100g or larger tank... there's just too much water to keep cool with ice.
Hope that's what you were looking for...

 

[reefclown]

Reefer Addict,
thanks for your thoughts, I'm thinking of installing this on a largish tank, the back pane measures 6ft x 2.5ft. I was kinda hoping that the pane that size would provide adequate cooling, with the tank temp running about 79 degrees and chiller compartment running at 65-70. I know nothing about the heat transfer properties of glass and wondering how effective (if at all) it might be.

 

[Reefer Addict]

Oh, and by the way...
Welcome to The Reef Tank...
(the welcome wagon should be by shortly... )
I know that glass has terrible heat-retaining properties (hence the need for dual-pane windows) so I would think that it would easily transfer the coolness of the chamber water to the water of the tank... you'd just need enough flow so that the water would carry away the heat efficiently... which could translate to hundreds of gallons a day.
I've heard of people using drinking fountain coolers to make homemade chillers... maybe you could work some sort of variation on your idea with that one... just have the water circulate from another tank which contains the freshwater chiller, which in turn enters and exits the chamber on the backside of the tank.
It all sounds like too much work to me though...

 

[reefclown]

I was kinda thinkin along the lines of an enviromentally friendly system, minimise water waste, and reduce the electric bill in the process as well as keeping the mechanism simple.

I've been following reeftank for a while, SPANKY( I bet Ron loves that name)is a constant chuckle, the board in general is a wealth of down to earth knowledge without the usual commercial SHI*E.

 

[Reefer Addict]

I agree with you... this place is great. Where I'm from (California) conserving water is of utmost importance (we're basically an irrigated desert) which is why I don't think a free-flowing water system would work where I live... that's about the only reason I suggested a closed system. I also thought about this problem long and hard when I started my reef (our temperatures average 95-105 degrees F during the summer) and the best solution I came up with was what I mentioned in my first post.
It's free (aside from refreezing the water bottles nightly), minimizes waste, and appears to be environmentally friendly.
It sounds like you're on the right track though... I wish you luck.