DIY Chiller by C-BuZz

[C-BuZz]

G'day guys,

Summer completely steam rolled me this year & totally caught me off guard. Temps hit 35c the other day & almost whiped out my minireef. Lost a few corals & everything was looking really bad Tank water temps were sitting on 33c . I built this little unit using a barfridge compressor & re-engineered the plumbing






Overall shot after I've tidied her up a bit:


Got it setup at the front just for testing to see if the system needs adjusting before it goes at the back:


Fully insulated the tub:




Chiller at home at the back of tank. It's really quite a small chiller, fits in there nicely.




This pulled my 90L tank temps from 33c to 25c in about 2hrs in 35c ambients, at which point my tank heaters kicked in. I had to switch the device off in the end as my tank temps where still dropping All up this cost me just under $100AUD. I'm going to be getting one of these bad boys to use with it:

http://www.reefshops.com/digital-dual-mode-heater-and-cooler-controller-atc800.html

To regulate the tub temps.

Cheers

C-BuZz

[TimH07]

i'd suggest you take that copper line out of that water fast and furious unless you want to throw out your rock and sand and have to rigorously scrub your tank down, copper is definatly a huge no no in a reef tank.

[C-BuZz]

i'd suggest you take that copper line out of that water fast and furious unless you want to throw out your rock and sand and have to rigorously scrub your tank down, copper is definatly a huge no no in a reef tank.

There is no copper directly touching the tank water.. The water being pumped out of the tank stays in the tubes. It doesn't come in contact with the copper at all.

C-BuZz

[TimH07]

im confused at what im seeing then, what is that small tub with water in it?

[C-BuZz]

im confused at what im seeing then, what is that small tub with water in it?

I think you may be. The tub is full of water which the tubes run through, they dont actually dump the tank water into the tub. The tubes run through the cold tub & cool down the water inside the tubes which is then pumped back into the tank.

C-BuZz

[TimH07]

ahh very nice then, sorry about the confusion. i wanted to run a chiller but i opted for dual 120mm 115v ac fans custom made on acrylic over the sump for now.

GW

[cagey]

The vessel filled w/ water is excellent idea versus just a coil say inside a dorm fridge using cold air as the chilling medium. wonder if a vessel say full of a denser liquid would hold the cold longer for heat transfer?? Nice idea.

[Bodegus]

This is coming from my chemsitry experience... just starting my reef tank


It takes as much energy to melt ice as as it does to heat water from 0 to 80C. As long as the water retention in the cool tank is short enough to avoid going too cold ice should be the best thing?

[mutiger91]

A buddy of mine coiled up a huge amount of tubing (I'm thinking he had at least 60 feet if not more coiled around an aluminum spool) into a dorm fridge and ran bulkheads out one side of the fridge. He cranked the fridge down as cold as it would go and ran water from his tank through it at about 250gph. The dwell time in the fridge allowed him to pull his tank from 85 down to 79. His reef was a 110 with Halides. It was impressive and actually looked good as it appeared only to be a small fridge next to his stand.

[Original Fin]

There's a very good explanation here BeanAnimal's Bar and Grill - Dorm Fridge Chillers Fact and Fiction of why refrigerators make for bad chillers. It may work well for a time, but those motors/condensors are not designed to run full bore all the time. It's all about the duty cycle. You'd be better off chopping into an AC unit...they are designed to run the high duty cycles.

[mcoleman]

There's a very good explanation here BeanAnimal's Bar and Grill - Dorm Fridge Chillers Fact and Fiction of why refrigerators make for bad chillers. It may work well for a time, but those motors/condensors are not designed to run full bore all the time. It's all about the duty cycle. You'd be better off chopping into an AC unit...they are designed to run the high duty cycles.

Thanks for the Explanation! I had to find out the hard way that refrigerators have absolutely bad chillers... what a disappointment last summer when I had to switch to chiller rentals because both of my refrigerators stopped working properly. Really great when having a heat have...