Never before seen (I think) DIY Cooling idea ...

If you don't mind my asking, why not through the sides? I'm just simply curious.
 
for the same price why not get a sump, and use fans to cool the water that way. To me i dont think it will be very effective at cooling, people have tried your fridge idea. it doesn't work the water has to fravel through slow enough so that it cools it, but fast enoguh so that it actually effect the displays temp, and water cannot be pumped through fast enough.
 
diy cooler

Gatorguy said:
So I have this 110g tank that has been running 84ish °F since I added AH Supply lighting. I have glass tops. The temperature has been stressing me. So has the pricing of chillers. I do have two cooling fans in my canopy and have recently removed part of the glass tops to facilitate evaporation and thus cooling effect. I don't like that idea as a permanent solution.

I got to thinking... I wonder if I could get some kind of coil, like a radiator in your car for example, and a fan to blow across it and pump water through the coil with my magdrive pump that I use for filtration (Ocean Clear Canister) to reject some of the heat from the water to the room air.

Here's the breakthrough (maybe). I came across this product in a sale brocure for an HVAC supply company (I work in the industry). See the product here . You might want to click on the second link under product literature on the right side of the webpage.

The product (called a kickspace heater) is made to heat parts of your home by piping hot water through the coil and blowing air across it. I am in central Florida and have never seen such, but the idea of using this for my aquarium intrigued me. I can plumb my water through it, it already has a built in blower motor and coil for heat transfer. Admittedly, the coolest the aquarium could get is equal to the room temperature, but being in Florida, my house stays around 76°F max so I would be happy to cool to my room temp (or even 78-80°F).

Initial Cost: Small model is $140ish, medium is $180ish, large is $220ish.

Operating Cost:Small and medium models pull .5 amp at 120vac which is about 30 watts (nothing).
Large unit pulls .75 amps at 120vac which is about 67 watts (not much more)

I am thinking I can either get a thermostat controller to switch power to the blower motor, or simply run the blower on one of the timers I use for my lighting to run the blower only when I have the lights on.

So, what do you think? Crazy idea? Let's talk about it.

P.S. Here is another manufacturer of a similar product. I don't have pricing info on these.
Click to expand...

I have DIY a cooling system . I brought a radiator link the out put of my filter into the input of the radiator .Mount a fan blowing at the radiator. Result, 1 degree off the room temp. Solves the topping of water if you fan is blowing direct at surface. By the way the fan is a DC 12v from my pc. Dont take up much electricty bill.
 
mysis said:
for the same price why not get a sump, and use fans to cool the water that way. To me i dont think it will be very effective at cooling, people have tried your fridge idea. it doesn't work the water has to fravel through slow enough so that it cools it, but fast enoguh so that it actually effect the displays temp, and water cannot be pumped through fast enough.
Click to expand...

I am not a fan of the fridge idea. I have read on this board and other places that the fridge idea's performance is mediocre at best.

As far as the sump idea goes... I don't really have room for a sump I don't think. Also, when you are blowing air across open water, you are adding humidity to the room space (like I am doing now with my glass tops off). Humidity is an extra load to an A/C system (called latent heat) versus the sensible heat load (more desirable for indoor comfort concerns) you would get if you used something like I have described in my main post. Besides an indoor comfort angle, there is the problem of having to "top off" the aquarium due to water loss through evaporation.

Sounds like charlessito is sort of verifing that my idea is at least feasible.

As far as the copper angle... Do you think that water running through the copper pipes will "inject" enough copper to do any harm, especially considering I try to do 50% water changes weekly due to my EI fertilizing?
 
Besides, more than likely almost all the water that comes out of your tap and into your tank travels through copper pipes in the house.
 
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