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DIY Chillers
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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