chiller repair

[vid151]

anyone on here do refrigeration work?

my chiller sprung a coolant leak ( btw coolant seems to be good for coral ) and I will need the unit recharged if I get a new heat exchanger from the manufacture

at least it died in the fall , I can keep the temps down this winter with a fan, but I will need to get this fixed asap 800 watts over it seem to heat things up quickly


now to call west coast aquatics and see if I can get a new heat exchanger...

Dave

 

[leeweber85]

Just curious, how do you know if your coolant is leaking?

I think UNI's chiller is leaking some kind of oil into the water so I I'm curious.

 

[vid151]

well so the chiller blew a fuse so I knew something was up.

so I reset things and I turned it on and it emediatly started cycling on and off ( not normal)

then shutdown completly ( as if it was out of coolant)



mine has a heat exchanger that I can open and look in to ( it amounts to a peice of 4 inch PVC with a threadon cap )

I opened it looked in ( the smell was off - oily ) and when I filled it up with water I could then see bubbles streamming in to the water...

as a side effect my skimmer has not formed a single normal bubble in over a week either. the water forms very fine bubbles but they dont cary up and pop like they should, infact I am getting a lot of fine bubbles in the display ...

so the 50 gallon water changes continue ....

 

[leeweber85]

I'm having the same problem with the skimmer too. I'm almost positive now that it's something with the chiller. When I stick my hand in the sump, it is covered in oil residue that smells industrial (not organic if you know what I mean).

 

[vid151]

that is exactly how I would describe this...

good luck to you

Dave

 

[phishcrazee]

Ewww, Lee, sounds like that junk is leaking into that tank, not good I wonder if it was a small leak if the stuff you can get to pout into your cars radiator would work to plug up the leak? Can't think of the name of it though....... of course if it didn't work, then you'd have that chemical in the tank water too.

 

[leeweber85]

We have a brand new chiller, so I'm not worried about fixing it. We just havent installed it yet. I'm going to take take out the old one for sure now!

 

[vid151]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13711670#post13711670 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by phishcrazee
Ewww, Lee, sounds like that junk is leaking into that tank, not good I wonder if it was a small leak if the stuff you can get to pout into your cars radiator would work to plug up the leak? Can't think of the name of it though....... of course if it didn't work, then you'd have that chemical in the tank water too.

I thought about that but I am more worried at this point that Salt water got in the the works of the chiller I can add r134a but if there is salt water in the system It wont last long ( this is providing I can get the leak fixed)

so once I get the leak fixed I will want to evacuate the works and get it back to a vacume state. then add coolant and oil


as I stated earler for haveing a noxious chemical in the tank I think all anamials seem fine ... I have one coral ( an sps that I only know as a yellow birdsnest) that is completely bleached ( not dead just no color - all the polyps are all there and extended .... so I may loose some things yet ( or it could be the temp swings that are causeing this as well as with the chiller I would swing 1.5 deg a dayTops - with out I am swinging 5 deg + a day..

 

[leeweber85]

I would think any refrigerator repair place would be able to take a look at it.

 

[gjakub]

I depends on the refrigerent that is being used but the oil is very bad for your tank. I know the produst you are thinking of for the car radiator and it would clog everything in the chiller if your could get it in. If it is 134a which is what your car and frig uses may be able to repair with a compression fitting and get refrigerent from a auto parts store.