DIY Chillers

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: DIY Chillers
From: JDAVIS at bio_tamu.edu
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 21:35:00 -0600
I have made a chiller for a reef tank that i kept a few years back.  The 
water was getting pretty warm with the hot summer weather and the big 
bank of 6' VHO (six of them), and a big pump of the wet/dry the temp on 
the tank increased to about 32-33C (about 90F).  I took a "bar 
refrigerator" or a large dorm refrigerator and drilled two holes in the 
side of it.  Through the holes I fitted a threaded PVC bulkhead and to 
both sides I fitted hose barbs.  I ran about 25 feet of plastic tubing 
(figuring that there would be no worry about leaching any nasty 
chemicals from the hoses as opposed to using copper pipe with would have 
been a better conductor of heat) through the interior of the 'frige.  I 
turned the thermostat all of the way up (or is it down) and made the 
frige as cold as possible.  Then i slowly ran water off of a valve on 
the return from the pump to the tank.  This water circulated through the 
frige and returned to the tank about 5 or 6 degrees cooler that the 
water in the sump of the wet/dry.  It wasn;t much cooling...but it was a 
little.  Now, if I would have used a 
freezer....hmmmmmmmmmmm..........One thing that you would want to 
consider is the cost advantages of running a chiller or just air 
conditioning that one room.
John
 
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    http://http.tamu.edu:8000/~jmd9261
    jdavis at bio_tamu.edu
    jmd9261 at tam2000_tamu.edu
  
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