Chiller on sumpless tank
- Thread starter MGB
- Start date
No problem ...
Mine is not sumpless but I would think that you have two basic choices. You can buy a drop in coil chiller. Not as efficient as the flow through but they work, especially if you have good circulation within the tank.
Or, use a siphon to get the water down to an external pump, then into the flow through chiller then return back to tank. You can just assemble some PVC pipe to make the siphon and the return. Hang them over the edge of the tank, find a way to secure them so that they don't slide around. Make sure you use some type of strainer on the siphon tube to the pump so you don;t suck up and fish or critters or any big particles that can tear up your pump impeller or get stuck in it's input ... Pretty easy.
Its always better to filter the water before pumping through the chiller. You can do this using a passive canister filter or use a canister filter with a pump if your chiller is small and the canister filter can supply enough flow.
Mine is not sumpless but I would think that you have two basic choices. You can buy a drop in coil chiller. Not as efficient as the flow through but they work, especially if you have good circulation within the tank.
Or, use a siphon to get the water down to an external pump, then into the flow through chiller then return back to tank. You can just assemble some PVC pipe to make the siphon and the return. Hang them over the edge of the tank, find a way to secure them so that they don't slide around. Make sure you use some type of strainer on the siphon tube to the pump so you don;t suck up and fish or critters or any big particles that can tear up your pump impeller or get stuck in it's input ... Pretty easy.
Its always better to filter the water before pumping through the chiller. You can do this using a passive canister filter or use a canister filter with a pump if your chiller is small and the canister filter can supply enough flow.
Stinkyfish1
New member
That is a task I was struggling myself with for a while on my sumpless 40g.
What I did is just hang the pump or mount it directly in the tank at the top. A Rio 2100 works well for this and is inexpensive. I have the chiller on a coffee table next to the tank so I dont loose too much GPH. For the return I used a kit by Lifegard. You can find it at www.liveaquaria.com and I think www.marinedepot.com
Its pretty simple and about the only option without rigging an overflow.
I'll post a pic later.
What I did is just hang the pump or mount it directly in the tank at the top. A Rio 2100 works well for this and is inexpensive. I have the chiller on a coffee table next to the tank so I dont loose too much GPH. For the return I used a kit by Lifegard. You can find it at www.liveaquaria.com and I think www.marinedepot.com
Its pretty simple and about the only option without rigging an overflow.
I'll post a pic later.
marcrunner
New member
Both of these ideas seem somewhat risky. If water stops flowing for any reason, the chiller could burn up
Is the filtration builtin to the back of your tank? My tank is 65 and has the filtration builtin along the back. I just placed a RIO in the first chamber ran it to the chiller and then returned it to same chamber. You have to be careful if your setup is like mine. The first time I set up my chiller was to pull water from the first chamber of the filtration and I placed the return from my chiller to the tank, like the LFS said. Wrong, there was to much water returning to my tank and it almost over flowed. Anyways, thats my two cents. Good Luck.
