[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Tank cooling
I've put a little thought into tank cooling recently, but I don't have any
finished designs.
I've come up with three possible methods.
The first one is only good if you have a well, and thus, a cheap source of
cool water. Run a polyethylene icemaker line into the sump and leave coils
of it submerged and then run it off into a drain or into the yard.
The second would be to find a cheap second hand small refrigerator. There
have been some very small ones made. Drill two holes thru the side, just
large enough to get a 3/8" pipe thru, from the outside to the inside. Seal
around the pipes inside the cooling box with aquarium sealant. Use a
powerhead to pump water from the tank to one pipe using vinyl tubing.
Connect the pipes inside the refrigerator with a few coils of vinyl tubing.
Run a vinyl tube back to the tank from the other pipe sticking out of the
refrigerator. You can adjust the amount of cooling with the refrigerator
thermostat and with the amount of vinyl tubing lying inside the
refrigerator. You could also control the rate of water flowing thru the
tubing with a valve. You can also keep your fish food and your beer in the
refrigerator. It's performance would be little affected by the
modifications.
The third method would be to go to radio shack and get some thermoelectric
modules, heat sinks and an appropriate transformer to run them. These are
solid state cooling devices used in electric coolers and temperature
sensitive electronics. They could be glued directly onto the back of the
tank, but this would create cool spots. It would be better to glue them
onto a sump. To find out more about thermoelectric devices, visit
www.howstuffworks.com and search 'electric coolers'.