A little help concerning drilling please

[Newreeflady]

I have a 12g nanocube, topless and sumpless and already running (not empty.) I'm now considering adding a chiller, possibly an IceProbe, which would require a 1.25" hole to be drilled into the back of the tank since I have no room for hang-on equipment. A few questions:

Would I have to remove everything and empty completely? The tank has an overflow and compartmental filtration in the back seperated from the main area by plastic, so if I have to remove everything could I at least leave the moist sand in tact?

How much would something like this cost me? I have drilled some goldschlager bottles in my day, but never an aquarium. Do most people pay others to get tanks drilled? If so, how much, and can anyone recommend someone local (near Berkeley?) If a lot of people do this themselves, how high up do you have to drill? I was thinking this would be a more convenient (for mounting) mod if it were drilled toward the bottom. I'd have to buy the unit to be sure of exactly where, but from the looks of the diagram on Marine Depot's site, it appears i'd be looking to drill 1-2" above the bottom of the tank. Is it more dangerous to drill near the bottom/top/sides than near the center?

Any help is appreciated. Even living in Berkeley it seems I can't quite keep the heat down in my apartment. When I got home yesterday the tank temperature was over 82 degrees and the house was probably close to that, and this is with a few windows open (there wasn't much breeze late in the day.) I have lots of windows, so it can really heat up in here, way hotter than it is outside. I've considered trying to find heavy-weight curtains to keep the light out, but I don't know how effective that would be so i'm exploring other options. It's either this or a fan next to the tank, which will look tacky and will cause massive evaporation to occur. I am planning to set up a top-off system, so that should offset it, but i've never seen a fan that didn't look like crap and this is in my living room.

Thanks,
Angela

 

[Newreeflady]

Oh, nevermind. I just realized that this wouldn't fit if I drilled it because of the lack of depth on the back compartments. :/

-A

 

[Kinetic]

You can try hooking an iceprobe inline to a pipe by using a big T pvc fitting and running some flexible PVC from your tank, through the ice probe, and back out. This is actually a much more efficient way to cool your tank than just putting an iceprobe in. You could just hookup a pump inside one of the back compartments to kick in whenever the temperature rises too high, then the water will pump through to the probe and back into the tank. You can mount the probe anywhere you desire.

goodluck

 

[Newreeflady]

Hi Art,

I'm not sure I understand the T fitting thing, but I was considering if I could run a tube out and back in. How discretely do you think this can be done? I was thinking maybe rigid black J tubes out and in (not sure where to find those), then I can connect PVC to the J tubes somehow and those to the unit. I am not sure of the details on this, like what fittings i'd need, etc.

Thanks for the help!
Angela

 

[Kinetic]

Hey Angela,
It can be done VERY discreetly. Get some flexible PVC piping that's black from Aquaticeco.com, plumb it to a maxijet pump that sits in one of the chambers, and you can route the water out of there however you want since the PVC is flexible (well, to a certain point). THen you'll need a reducer to make the pipe big enough to fit a hard T pvc fitting.

I believe the iceprobe can be put in a 2" T fitting, meaning the probe goes in on the left side of the T, the water comes in from the other side of the T, and then returns back to the tank on the bottom of the T. As you can see the water will rush right into the probe, taking a 90 degree turn back to the tank.

Most maxijet pumps will be 1/2" - 3/4" outlets, so you'll have to do some crazy reducing from the T to the PVC piping, which isn't a problem =) THen you can hide the iceprobe anywhere you'd like.

 

[Vincerama2]

Also note that a simple fan blowing across the surface of the water will cool the tank down DRAMATICALLY. (So dramatically that I had to use capital letters!)

During some brutal heat wave 2 years ago, my tank got to 85, I blew a fan over the surface and it dropped to 75 or so! However, this is EVAPORATIVE COOLING (note the capitals). That means you'll have to top off water more. If you have auto-top off, that's not so much of a problem.

The pros/cons of a fan are;
pros
1) Coolers cost $200, fans cost $5 or so
2) probably less power consumption
3) will cool your lighting as well.

cons
1) might be loud
2) must keep up with evaporation!

You can actually hook up computer case cooling fans pretty easily with an AC adapter set to 5 volts.

V

 

[Al G Blenny]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7284570#post7284570 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by koden
You can try hooking an iceprobe inline to a pipe by using a big T pvc fitting and running some flexible PVC from your tank, through the ice probe, and back out. This is actually a much more efficient way to cool your tank than just putting an iceprobe in. You could just hookup a pump inside one of the back compartments to kick in whenever the temperature rises too high, then the water will pump through to the probe and back into the tank. You can mount the probe anywhere you desire.

goodluck

WOW thats a great idea! I would have never thought of it.

With a nano cube that doesn't have a top couldn't you just rest the probe in the filter area? The heat sink and fan would be big enough to sit on top and hold the probe under water I think.

 

[Kinetic]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7289631#post7289631 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Al G Blenny
WOW thats a great idea! I would have never thought of it.

Haha, I was really bored, had a really hot tank, and I'm an engineer, so I was trying to troubleshoot using an iceprobe. =P

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7289631#post7289631 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Al G Blenny

With a nano cube that doesn't have a top couldn't you just rest the probe in the filter area? The heat sink and fan would be big enough to sit on top and hold the probe under water I think.

You'd probably want to secure it down as well... but then the iceprobe is pretty big, and would look kinda funny sticking out of the back of the tank like that

 

[Newreeflady]

Yeah, I think it would look ugly sticking up out of the water. Not sure, but I think so.

Thanks for the tips, Koden. I'm going to give this idea a lot of thought over the next few days. I'll probably go with this idea, I just have to make sure I can get all of the parts I need and get it up and running in time for my vacation

Angela

 

[Kinetic]

is the semester over already?