DIY chiller

[rickykline]

has anyone done a diy chiller? my mom bought me a little mini fridge from target for christmas last year and i have yet to use it for anything.. i was wondering if it were possible to drop water temp a few degrees with it. my tank is running about 5* warmer than room temp with no heater in it.. so about 82-83* on average.. i was wondering if it would make it worth while to try. i figured i could use a small low volume pump to pump water out of the tank and into a long hose that would be coiled inside the fridge then return to the tank.

would it work??

[rickykline]

Re: DIY chiller

and keep in mind i only have a 10 gallon planted tank with a few 6-7 fish.

[SCOTT]

Re: DIY chiller

Will it work? Yes. Will it be overkill on a 10 gallon tank? Again, yes. There have been several of these made over the years on the internet. They work, they are cheap to make, and they are meant for much larger tanks with fish requiring very specific temperature ranges. Chances are, if you have your fish in something as small as a 10 gallon tank they don't meet that criteria. Rarely would you equip a fresh water tank with a chiller, it just isn't neccessary. Fresh water in general experiences wide and frequent temperature changes and the fish have adapted to tolerate these extremes. Salt water fish are what chillers are intended for, as these fish are used to tight temperature tollerances with very little fluctuation occuring in nature.
Can you do it? Sure. Should you do it? Well, how bad do you want to tear up that mini fridge?

[rickykline]

Re: DIY chiller

i am mainly wanting to do this to keep the temps down and to help prevent any warm water algae blooms that may occur. maybe it is over kill lol..

[rrocket2002]

Re: DIY chiller

Hey, I have one of those mini fridges!  Its the kind that holds about a 6-pack of cans at most.  I like the idea.  I don't know if I want to rig the fridge though...

[rickykline]

Re: DIY chiller

its just big enough for a six pack and a bolonga sandwich.. lol i have no other need for it.. thats why i dont care to tear it up..

[wvgdiscus]

Re: DIY chiller

Salt water fish are what chillers are intended for, as these fish are used to tight temperature tollerances with very little fluctuation occuring in nature.
Can you do it? Sure. Should you do it? Well, how bad do you want to tear up that mini fridge?

It is not the saltwater fish that are in need of the cooler temps.
It is the parasites that live in the coral that requires the cooler temps.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: DIY chiller

Poor idea....it will not cool it enough and will cause a great deal of fluctuation.

Many guys have tried it in the reef community and it did not turn out well.

A better idea is to get a pc fan and put it either on a timer or rancho temp contoller.

I am doing so on my reef tank that will get close to 90f with the lights on but now with the fans and controller I am able to keep it a steady 79f.

[JStrider]

Re: DIY chiller

If you were to do this, I think the best way would be to run the water thru a coil of metal tubing(metal will transfer the cold to the tank water the best.) then I would place that Coil into a bucket of water and keep the whole bucket and coil in the mini fridge.  The water will help transfer the cold into the tubing, and will help stabilize the temperature being transferred to the tank.

** I have no experience with this kind of stuff, just seems like a good way to do it in my head.


I have to agree the computer fan solution is probably a lot better!

[rrocket2002]

Re: DIY chiller

I was picturing having a bunch of tubing coiled up inside the mini fridge so the water would take a bit to cycle through it and back into the tank.  I was thinking really small tubing and a small pump in the tank or out, as long as it remains primed.  Now to get fancy is set up a temperature gauge that would kick on the pump at a preset "high" temp and turn off when it reaches your desired preset temp.

I like the PC fan idea.  I picture the fans in a canopy though.

This or spend $500-2000 for a chiller.

[JStrider]

Re: DIY chiller

[quote="rrocket2002";p="68349"]Now to get fancy is set up a temperature gauge that would kick on the pump at a preset "high" temp and turn off when it reaches your desired preset temp.[quote]

the only thing about that is the stationary water in the fridge while the pump is off will become much colder  then the water normally would when the pump is running.   When the pump comes back on the extra cold water will be pumped into the tank, definitely causing a cold area where the water enters the tank, and possibly causing a sudden temperature drop of the whole tank, which could be pretty stressful on the fish.  

Theoretically you might not even need a pump, if the fridge is level with the tank and one outlet is below the other you could set it up to be a thermosiphon.

warm water enters the coil, cools, flows out the bottom, sucking in warm water from the tank which is cooled and flows out the bottom.

[ImaGuyGeek]

Re: DIY chiller

Fry's has small water pumps and cooling kits for PC's. I would imagine something like that would work as well.

[JStrider]

Re: DIY chiller

most of the computer water cooling systems will only cool down to room temperature.  if you go below it you have to worry about condensation getting onto the computer components... so usually you dont see kits for sub ambient systems...

[ImaGuyGeek]

Re: DIY chiller

Very true but the PC pump and hosing run through the mini fridge would reduce temp and provide small components easy to put in the fridge case and provide the water flow needed for a small chiller.

So mini fridge with pump and 5 ft of coiled up PC cooler hosing in it and 2 small holes in door with internal and external hose connectors. You could probably tap the power supply for the fridge to run the pump as well. then make a copper tubing chilling condenser for under the substrate and connect it to the intake and outflow from the fridge door with more hose.

Just a thought

[eklikewhoa]

Re: DIY chiller

The computer thing is a TEC, they have those in the form of Iceprobes and ICA's for the aquarium world already but if the ambient temp. is hot then it effectiveness of either will not be great....I had an ICA on my little nanocube and it did pretty good cooling the little tank with halides on it. There are "mini-chiller" that work off the same concept for a cheap alternative to a chiller and big.

Having used them all with avg. temps inside the house nothing beats a simple pc fan. They offer really decent looking units now that clip on the tank/sump which don't require the use of a canopy.

The fridge thing has been tried by tons of reef guys and if you wanna search it on reefcentral.com(one of the bigger sites) then you will find that some of these guys go as far as using titanium tubing as heat exchangers and it did not work efficiently.