1800 Gallon Reef .... Houston, Tx

Usually you would get several smaller heaters so that, if the thermometer on any one of them stuck, the heater would be too small to totally fry the tank. The controller should only monitor, not actually control, the heaters. That way if the controller's probe generated a false reading you'd just have a bit of a heart attack but not actually lose your tank.

Dave.M
 
I will prod Dave and get him to get on here and update the thread.

That was a pretty rough week for Dave. The chiller on the tank is controlled by the opening and closing of a solenoid valve tied to a ranco temperature controller. When the controller opens the valve the massive compressor outside kicks on as it senses the pressure drop in the closed system. Unfortunately solenoid valves have nuked countless tanks by failing in the open state. In Dave's case that means the compressor never gets the signal to shut off. It's actually pretty impressive that it could chill down that massive amount of water so quickly and to such a low temp without freezing up. His contingency of having the aquacontroller alert him when the temp dropped below a certain point was defeated by the IT guys blocking his web traffic at the house, so the message never got out. The salt in the wound was as he was removing the deceased blue spot from the tank and walking it out the front door one of the workers cut him off while trying to get out of the way, this caused Dave to loose his grip and caught a barb in the hand. He called me on the way back from the ER and you could just tell he needed a vacation. I think the final death toll was about half the livestock in the tank. A few days after it stuck on the first time it tried to do it again. Since then everything has been doing well and the tank keeps gaining more and more livestock.

In this system you really need two solenoids in series attached to two separate controllers to prevent failure. I am a firm believer in layering in some redundancy into our systems to prevent catastrophic failure. If you use an aquarium computer, plugging in dedicated temperature controller between the chiller or heater and the computer is a simple and effective way of mitigating risk. If one system fails the other will prevent catastrophic failure. I also believe running an auto top off without two controllers is just asking for trouble. I learned the hard way.

-Brett
 
Wow, thanks for the update. Sorry to hear about the failure and loss of live stock. I hope Dave feels better physically and mentally.
 
Oh no, how horrible he must felt thru all of that!

Keep at it - some accidents are small, some are huge, but don't let them ruin you. Learn from it, find the solution, and take your next shot!
 
heat/cool in series

heat/cool in series

First off - Dave GREAT job on the build and overcoming the immense number of seemingly endless obstacles. Wish you all the best in regards to your recovery. Also wish you were closer to me...lol

I had not though of the idea to use a heater controller in series. I had also heard of the advice to run a completely separate backup controller set at slightly higher and lower temps as safety shutoff/on points.

As for the use in series I am curious as to how you would deploy that with a system such as Neptune. Would the heater be plugged into the Ranco controller which would then be plugged into the Apex outlet? This would server well in case of an Apex relay failure (only in the case where the failure left the outlet on). In all other cases the failure would cause a power failure to the Ranco and thus no backup either. I am missing something?
 
I would also like to know more about your preferred way of heating and controlling temps. So example on my 120 if it takes 400 watts to heat the tank efficiently then it would be better to run say 4 100w heaters vs 1 400w? Then control them off a ranco and have that through an apex or similar controller as a error alert only. ?
 
The common "safe" method would be to use 4 - 100 watt heaters. The reason behind this is if one should malfunction and stay on it can only cause 1/4 the damage and give you more time to fix the problem. Should one malfunction you would see a rise in temp BUT hopefully the temp would not be to high.

Joe
 
Now Dave or someone mentioned not actually using the controller to control the heaters but just as a notification system. So would I take said heaters then run them of a ranco controller and them run that of the controller or not and just have the controller monitor and alert only ?
 
Large chiller controls

Large chiller controls

When I install chillers, I use an high amperage electrical contactor whose coil is powered by Profilux, Neptune, etc. outlet under temperature control. The chiller power is wired through the contactor. The Profilux has a wider temp range set than the chillers'onboard Ranco. Once the temperature gets warm enough, the contactor pulls in, allows power to the chiller and the Ranco controls the chillers start/stop (either the solenoid valve as shown in this thread, or direct compressor start in smaller chillers). This way, if the solenoid sticks on, you have a backup to remove power to the chiller. This is a good safety feature and can be implemented on ANY size chiller. Conversely, this same setup can be used for heaters.
Let me know if you need more info. Great project you have going there.
 
H20ENG said:
When I install chillers, I use an high amperage electrical contactor whose coil is powered by Profilux, Neptune, etc. outlet under temperature control. The chiller power is wired through the contactor. The Profilux has a wider temp range set than the chillers'onboard Ranco. Once the temperature gets warm enough, the contactor pulls in, allows power to the chiller and the Ranco controls the chillers start/stop (either the solenoid valve as shown in this thread, or direct compressor start in smaller chillers). This way, if the solenoid sticks on, you have a backup to remove power to the chiller. This is a good safety feature and can be implemented on ANY size chiller. Conversely, this same setup can be used for heaters.
Let me know if you need more info. Great project you have going there.
Click to expand...

What kind of amperage electrical contactor ?
 
H20ENG said:
When I install chillers, I use an high amperage electrical contactor whose coil is powered by Profilux, Neptune, etc. outlet under temperature control. The chiller power is wired through the contactor. The Profilux has a wider temp range set than the chillers'onboard Ranco. Once the temperature gets warm enough, the contactor pulls in, allows power to the chiller and the Ranco controls the chillers start/stop (either the solenoid valve as shown in this thread, or direct compressor start in smaller chillers). This way, if the solenoid sticks on, you have a backup to remove power to the chiller. This is a good safety feature and can be implemented on ANY size chiller. Conversely, this same setup can be used for heaters.
Let me know if you need more info. Great project you have going there.
Click to expand...

That is a good idea. I like the fact the way you have the controller in control of the power to the chiller/heater as long as the chiller/heater is within an acceptable range of operation.

Me and Murphy have way to close of a relationship.

Joe
 
Minimum of 30A, but would need to be much larger depending on chiller/ heater sizing. I do the same thing for halides. All that is drawn from powerbar outlet is mA to power the coil.
 
H20ENG said:
When I install chillers, I use an high amperage electrical contactor whose coil is powered by Profilux, Neptune, etc. outlet under temperature control. The chiller power is wired through the contactor. The Profilux has a wider temp range set than the chillers'onboard Ranco. Once the temperature gets warm enough, the contactor pulls in, allows power to the chiller and the Ranco controls the chillers start/stop (either the solenoid valve as shown in this thread, or direct compressor start in smaller chillers). This way, if the solenoid sticks on, you have a backup to remove power to the chiller. This is a good safety feature and can be implemented on ANY size chiller. Conversely, this same setup can be used for heaters.
Let me know if you need more info. Great project you have going there.
Click to expand...

I really like the mythology used in the above post. Very simple, yet very effective and can be used on any sized system, but I don't understand the use of the high amperage contactor.

If the chiller is plugged directly into an EB8 Neptune outlet and the chiller uses its own temp range that you set, and as a back up you have the outlet set up to turn off if the temp goes to a lower setting than you have the chiller set at, wouldn't that be a good failsafe?
 
dotcommer said:
I really like the mythology used in the above post. Very simple, yet very effective and can be used on any sized system, but I don't understand the use of the high amperage contactor.

If the chiller is plugged directly into an EB8 Neptune outlet and the chiller uses its own temp range that you set, and as a back up you have the outlet set up to turn off if the temp goes to a lower setting than you have the chiller set at, wouldn't that be a good failsafe?
Click to expand...

The logic is great I love it. The reason for a higher amp contractor is that you do not want the contacts to become pitted and "sticky". Motors, those those used in a chiller have a high initial draw of current when they start. If you start throwing that current across little contacts it'll shorten there life and put you right back in the world of a higher failure rate.

Joe
 
What Made2Rock said.
Also, if you already have pumps and lighting on your powerbar, dc8,etc then the chiller will likely overload the powerbars ampacity. Plus, larger chillers (1 hp and up) are usually 230v. The contactor is also a way to control the chiller with your powerbar, while powering it from a seperate dedicated circuit.
The powerbar is only powering the contactor (mere milliamps), not the whole load. I have powered many devices this way, (pumps, topoff, surges, lighting, chilling, heating, UV, etc) all while controlling with 1 powerbar. Another good example is multiple banks of halides over large tanks. Way too many amps for powerbars.
 
Well Dave said he was going to jump on here and give an update, but that was several days ago, so I guess I will prod him again.

Funny you brought it up, When I talked to him last he was going to have a contactor relay installed on the chiller. His AC guy didn't want to install the solenoids in series so the contactor is really his only other choice.

There is more then one way to skin a cat, so as long as you have some redundancy to increase your fault tolerance you will greatly reduce you risk of catastrophic failure.

Just for clarity I was recommending using the Ranco to maintain your temperature range and then have a separate controller with larger end points for redundancy. This issue is really a fluke with the chiller, your much more likely to either have a chiller fail which happened to me or heaters stick on. As someone pointed out earlier, use multiple smaller heaters then one massive one to reduce the chance of one stuck heater cooking your tank.
 
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