homemade chiller....

[seranko]

Hello guys,

I was thinking in this homemade chiller to install in my new reef tank. This acrylic column is to be install in between the overflow and the sump, is 39 inches long and 4 inches each side. Do you think is going to work ???? By the way, I know is probably a stupid idea


Thanks,


Seranko

 

[danmhippo]

It may work

A couple concern though. The top concern is the durability of the fan in high humidity and even constant contact with saltwater direct spray. Next is with design like this, you are cooling down water by evaporation. you might be losing a lot of water this way. Another concern is it's probably not going to be easy to clean this thing, and may end up as an algae scrubber.

 

[holry7778]

First Welcome to RDO!

Second I agree with danmhippo, Your evap will be exponiental along with the salt creep it entales.

Do you live close to a campus town? or can you afford to buy a small bar fridge? I have seen a nice "cheap" solution that is simply drilling two holes in the fridge thin-walled vinyl tubing in a coil on a closed loop from the sump. Then the rest of the fridge can be used for Fish food or a cold drink.

 

[Anonymous]

It may work for a tank of your size, but the evaporation os going to be high. How big is your tank? A small refrigerator may not have enough BTU's to cool the tank any significant anount. If you are going to try to use the fridge put the coils in water. You should get better heat transfer than if they are in air.

 

[Anonymous]

1, depends on your flow rate and the physical design, you may end up with little or no air flow out of the top vent, and the bottom fan may die sooner than the other due to back pressure.

2, as mentioned, the main mechanism of cooling in your gadget is evaporative cooling. You can achieve the same effect with a fan in the sump. The main difference between that and your design is that the cooling tower take less space, but IMO, it is not a big advantage compare to the other problem others had mentioned.

3, the compressor in a dom/bar fridge is not designed to run as a chiller. It is underpowered, and only rated to be run for a few hours a day.

 

[Anonymous]

Looks like overkill to me. You might try a radiator so that there is less evaporation.

 

[Anonymous]

radiator only work if the coolant is hotter than the ambient air temperature.

 

[Anonymous]

radiator only work if the coolant is hotter than the ambient air temperature.

Absolutely!!!!!!!!

So a radiator in a 75 degree room would not cool down 75 degree tank water.

Still just seems like overkill. Unless the room is constantly above 80 degrees F. In which case I am glad I don't live there.

 

[Anonymous]

I am saying that it is *not* an overkill, see my post above. I am just saying that radiator won't work in this application since the temperature differential is not enough to make radiator practical from engineering point of view.

 

[AnnArborBuck]

A better method is having the fan blow the air up from the bottom while the water falls down from the top. Essentially you want a counter-current flow of water to the air, not a perpendicular flow (think contact time here). That is how swamp coolers work and nuclear power plant coolers work.

 

[liquid]

A better method is having the fan blow the air up from the bottom while the water falls down from the top.

This would definitely save you a lot of fans (3 by my count).

BTW: seranko

:welcome:



Shane

 

[holry7778]

I still think the salt creep and top off issues with this system are really major draw backs. Not to mention the salinity changes in the tank water that will stress the fish.

I would think some closed loop system would be much more preferred. Heck even a radiator with a fan over it or in bucket of FW with a fan. Just something to knock back that evil salt creep

Larger ice packs might even be a thought if you have enough freezer room for them. I use this in my FW on really hot days. always works for me.

 

[Bishop1]

Let's see... where to start...

Of course this will work! It will work by evaporation... salt creep... you can contain that...

ozreef.org used to have a DIY section for cooling towers.. which is what you're building...

All you really need to do is use a piece of rigid tubing 3 - 4" diameter, mount a fan to the top, spray water down the tube using a circular spray emitter so the water moves down the outside of the pipe, and fan blows air down the middle. Then port the system so air vents upwards and water falls downards at the bottom... if you vent the air into the room with the aquarium, you're going to heat the room and increase the humdity.. I would vent the air outdoors somehow....

Meanwhile.. you don't need more than 1 fan per tower... keep the fan above the water and try and baffle the fan from the water if possible to keep it from corroding.

These are quite successful, but of course you are just evaporating water; because the temperature of the water is following a Boltzmann distribution a relative few (several million million) water molecules carry the majority of the heat present, you evaporate those, you drop the temp a decent amount. This is the same reason sweating actually works.
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[Anonymous]

...
These are quite successful, but of course you are just evaporating water; because the temperature of the water is following a Boltzmann distribution a relative few (several million million) water molecules carry the majority of the heat present, you evaporate those, you drop the temp a decent amount. This is the same reason sweating actually works.

Don't need to get into statistical mechanics, but the main reason it works so well for water is because the heat of evaporation is so large relative to other chemicals.

 

[Bishop1]

Yeah, I think I was going somewhere with that statement and then backspaced through the majority of it because it wouldn't have mattered to anymore.. I should have erased the entirety.
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