Chillers - I know nothing about them, what can you tell me?

C

CarolynM

I have a seahorse tank and recently acquired a little coolwater lionfish. My seahorse tank is 42 gallons with approx 15 sump. My lionfish is in qt not sure what he'll be in -he's tiny so say a 20 for now.

My temps run a little high during the summer - can get to 80. I'd like to keep them no higher than 75. I do run fans. My house temp is usually around 75-78 in the summer.

Would I be best off just using lots of fans and lots of top off water, or would a chiller be a good idea. Can you get one chiller to run on 2 tanks? I see many different kinds out there so please begin to educate me.

Thanks
 
If the house is going to be 75-78 you will never be able to cool to 75 with fans alone. You may be ale to get and hold under 80, maybe even hit 78 but there is just too much heat generation from lights and pumps to hold even with your room temp by evaporation.

If your seriously about keeping the tank at 75 you may be able to get there without a chiller if you drop the house temp to maybe 72 and do lots of top off water. Otherwise, you’re looking at a chiller to get that last couple degree drop. I’m in no way a chiller expert but do have a mechanical engineering/design background. What I can offer is you may be able to consider a undersized chiller if your not looking at large drop in temperature between: lets call it a ambient temperature without a chiller and where you want it to be. I doubt there is a standard so every chiller manufacturer. Each one probably has there own basis of saying their chiller is rated for a certain size tank. In reality it’s all about how much water they can cool from one degree to the next. So, a chiller rated for a 30 gallon system, with a 10 degree drop capability, may do fine on your system if you only need to cool say 5 degrees.

I’m not saying undersize, but do some checking into the manufactures specifications to see if a specific model will fit your needs. Now on the other side of the equation, over-sizing a chiller may save money in the long run as it should cool faster and hence run for a shorter period of time.

You have several options on chiller types, most are basically the same workings as an air conditioner or refrigerator, but require titanium heat exchangers so they don’t corrode when in contact with the salt water. That is why they are so expensive. Most of these require you to pump water through them so a small pump with supply and return tubing.
For smaller applications there are a couple manufacturers that provide a drop-in heat exchanger that you can put in your sump, eliminating the need for the pump and tubing.

I don’t think there is a practical way to hook up a single chiller to two systems. The flow controls would be a nightmare and would almost certainly lead to pumping one system dry and overflowing the other.

There is another type of chiller that does not run like a refrigerator but utilizes a cooling fan and a titanium probe. Basically the probe works as a heat sink and conducts the heat out of the tank to a radiator where it is cooled by a fan. This type of chiller is really only intended for nano systems with small loads as they just don’t have the capability to cool that much water.

hope this helps
 
This is something I've been confused about, let me make sure I understand correctly. Chillers won't get the tank temperature lower than the ambient temperature of the room? So if you have a 75 degree room lowest you're going with tank temp is 75 at best?

Thanks
 
In all seriousness though.

The advice above is correct.

Fans will help get you down a little more from were it is but not to equal room temp.

You need a chiller to get the tank anywhere near ambient room temperature or below.

No easy way to use a chiller on 2 systems unless they are actually one system with 2 displays.
 
It is definately possible to get the water temp lower than the ambient temperature using fans (evaporative cooling).

For example; in Iraq we used evaporative cooling to cool our drinking water far below the ambient temp. We took a one liter water bottle, slipped it into a sock, soaked the sock with water, hung the bottle and sock on the side view mirror of our Hummers while driving and voila, the water was quite cool.

Swamp coolers also wouldn't work if they couldn't get the temp lower than ambient. I understand that cooling air is easier than water but it will have a positive effect on water.

Most coral farms rely on evaporative cooling to control the temp of water when the heat of a greenhouse is well above 80 degrees.

Here is a link with info about evaporative cooling. It is about swamp coolers mainly, but evap cooling is evap cooling.

http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/heating_cooling/evaporative.html

I am not saying this will work absolutely in every application, but it is definately worth a try first considering the initial cost and ongoing cost of running a chiller. Install a fan(s) blowing at the water surface and you will be amazed how well this can work, especially as low as the relative humidity is here in the DFW area. With my tank I routinely had to turn the fan off because the tank was getting too cool.
 
Agreed. You can get the tank temp slightly below ambient with evap cooling. And with a FO system without hot lights It's probably very feasible to keep it around the 75 range without a chiller. Lots of fans!

Also as mentioned though the more humid the less they work so if you have a humid room you probably can't get lower then ambient.

Chillers are incredibly more efficient when the environment is close to what they chill to. So if it's 100 degrees and you have it outside it can only chill a certain amount. These are the pulldown numbers you often see (20, 25, or 30 degrees) So if you keep it in an 80 degree room you should be fine.
 
I bought a chiller from http://www.fritzpet.com/chillers.html lasr summer.They are located in Mesquite and I sent an employee to p.u. for me. Its quite and so far has worked great. I bought the largest they made.

Steve
 
not sure if this helps but I use a portable air conditioner in 150 gallon tank room...i turn my house temp to 80 and turn my portable ac to 75 and it keeps room and tank cool. My main tank is in my master bedroom so i use it as my ac for my room and tank.

you can use a chiller on two tanks you will just have to plumb all your tanks together.
 
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