Re: [APD] RE: Water Temp/Chillers?

["S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>]

A chiller is the last thing I want to do to keep a tank
cool -- they're expensive to buy and to operate.

My order of preference is hood venting, room fans, hood
fans, chiller.

Good hood venting, like the wood hoods shownb and sold on
the AH Supply web site, can be very effective -- sometimes
more effective that hood fans without good venting venting.
And because vents are passive, they are noiseless and
totally energy efficient ;-)

For hood fans, I prefer tubeaxial fans because they tend to
be the quietest for this kind of application. Flatpak type
centrifugal or impeller fans can save space but they tend
to be nosier for the amount of air they move. I like to get
tubeaxial fans at Mouser.com because they show a lot of
info for a wide selection of fans, speed, noise level,
energy consumption, cubic feet per minute, etc.

When all else fails, a chiller might be an economical
alternative to chilling the ambient air. I was having a
problem with a couple of my highly lit tanks and lowering
the house or room temperature was not an option (too
expensive). I only needed a little pull down in temp so I
started looking at the small chillers now available.  There
are several solid state chillers on the market but they
aren't very energy efficient -- otoh, they can double as
heaters in cold season, not that heaters are very expensive
to begin with, so the savings there is pretty small. I
finally settled up some Via Aqua chillers. They are
conventional "freon" (compressor/evaportor) type chillers
but they are small and much more affordable than the larger
units.

I have one on my 150g and it managed the tank temps all
summer long. It's idle now that winter is here but I expect
it to manage temps next summer and for several summers to
come. The Via Aquas have a Mitsubishi compressor that's
reportedly pretty reliable. 

JBJ also makes some small chillers but they priced out at
about twice what the Via Aquas did.

I believe a second model, more powerful than the first is
now available. Unfortunately, Via Aqua doesn't have any
info on it's web site about it's chiller.

Scott H.
--- "Dicosola, Victor" <victor_dicosola at lmco.com> wrote:

> . . . Are many utilizing chillers or just frequent water
> changes per week?
> Water changes for me would last about a day before the
> tank temp creeps up.
> Just curious to what others are doing before the REAL
> summer months arrive
> out my way.

=====
S. Hieber

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