beat the heat for cheap

[bkiba]

Ok i've had up my cooling tower for about 2 weeks (and one heat wave) now and I have to say it is the greatest thing I've done for my tank so far. I came home today to an 87F apt and a 79F tank. Without chilling (in the winter) my tank easily runs 2-4F over the ambient temp with all the lights on. There are concerns by some that this causes salt spray and (obviously) it evaps too much water. I'm to about 1 - 1.5 gal a day evap depending on the humidity. I think I've fixed the salt spray problem as well:

The main chamber is a 6" diam wye with a 4" piece coming out at an angle. I have that sitting on an inverted bucket with holes throughout it - the purpose of the bucket is to support the tower, and keep in the tower packing. I have two 4" diam fans blowing into the 4" part of the wye via a 4" splitter hooked to the wye. I have a seperate pump bring water to the top of the tower and at the top of the tower I have the plastic end of a water can to disperse the flow. To avoid excessive salt spray I put a 4" PVC cap over the top to catch any droplets that try to escape. In the tower I've loaded it up with packing - odd PVC parts from old projects and eggcrate pieces.

Initially I wanted to have the return from my tank pour through the tower but I think this setup it better - it allows a temp control circuit or a timer to control the fans and pump together.

One improvment will be a 6" end cap at the top of the tower with two hose barbs, one inlet with the watering can piece on the inside and the other air outlet that I will aim back into my sump to divert salt spray.

I'll post some pics and more detailed plans maybe later.

It works! I'm so happy and for only about $50 in parts it was worth the cash. If you have an autotop off already you will be good to go......

edited to add the pic

 

[impur]

Waiting for pics sounds interesting.

 

[olemos]

yes pics please

 

[bkiba]

pic added for the reply watchers - I just took a photo too, but i have about 300 pics dl'ing off my camera - that will be up in a sec

Oh and the top where the water comes in, that hole in the top has a 4" PVC cap just kind of sitting there. If it is air tight there will be no air flow, just need to make the air divert around so no salt spray escapes

 

[bkiba]

oh and use the cheap PVC. The 6" diam wye at lowes made of sched 40 was like $26 this one in the pic is for gutters or somthing - got it for $10

 

[mattydub]

right...looks good but do you have any measurements of how much it lowers the temp?

 

[bassman57]

that's a neat idea. very simple

 

[bkiba]

i have a 72G, and it keeps the temp down. With a cool day the tank runs at about 4+ degrees F over ambient. Today I got home it was 79 and the temp in the apt was 87. It evaps about 1.5 - 2 gal a day depending on humidity.

I have a degree in chemical engineering - I suppose I should dust off my books and stop wondering what the cooling capacity is.

 

[bkiba]

just based on the heat of evap for water - 970 btu / lb. Each gallon being about 8.5 lb, multiply together

you have about 8000 BTU of cooling throughout the day

that is about 330 BTU/hr of cooling

plz correct me if im wrong

 

[trmiv]

Wow, that is pretty damn inventive. Looks like it would be a bit loud though.

 

[bkiba]

Not loud at all - got the fans of the internet

they are 80CFM each 120VAC fans 4" diam. Just look for equipment cooling fans. Then on the comparison chart just look for quiet ones.....

really this is not much more noise than my overflow which has a HGB

 

[Tachyon]

reminds me of a turbo kit for some reason =p, cool design

 

[rsteagall]

you guys are freakin wack.

 

[bunsenburner]

Grainger.com has a bunch of different fans axial fans with CFM and sound ratings. I've found it a pretty good place to pick these things up.

 

[ziac]

how many gph does the feeder pump push ??

 

[bkiba]

via aqua 305 - some damn metric pump

1000L/hr
mh is 1.5m

It is pumping from the sump water level to the top of the tower through a soft hose. The total height is about 2 - 3 ft.

So in English terms it is probably throwing about 265 gph on a good day.

I think this was my first powerhead.



You know that is the best part of this project for me at least. I use zipties and drillholes to hold the thing together and fans on. I use all my old PVC fittings for tower packing that have no feasable use and I use old crappy powerheads to run the thing

Its like cleaning out the closet.

 

[scuba4ever]

hey, nice idea...now if you could just figure out how to include the dust bunnies from under the bed and you are gold..lol....Do you have one or two fans on it?

 

[revclyburn]

Bkiba

you're brilliant, you should really capitalize on that design, PATENT IT before I do, LOL!

Rev

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Ok, if you're going to do a cooling tower, how about running a coil of thinwall tubing in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket as a heat exchanger.

Use a small pump to run water from your sump, through the coil, and back. Then just use fresh water in your bucket with your fan and evaporation tower. This way you evaporate tower water, and not tank water.

Or else, you could just put 1 gallon jugs of ice into your bucket and run your circulation pump on a thermostat.

Check this out this "bong cooler":

http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery...&curtab=2222_1&hl=cooling&hl=tower&sbid=lc01a

You could run your tank water tubing coil up the tower and do counter current heat exchange.

 

[impur]

Wow thats a good idea! What is you evap before versus after putting this on the tank?