Ever put your chiller outside?

[PelagicMagic]

when you got 2 grand in hard coral and many, many hours of labor into a tank and your temp is pushing 80 degrees i donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t see it as a waste. You got to protect your investment/animals. Please don't just jump in our discussion with statements that you cant back up

 

[Tu Ku]

Waste of money. If you need your tank cooler just turn your heater off. I don't know, maybe in warmer places it's more necessary, but I live in Colorado. If I need my system to cool down I just turn the heater knob to a lower setting. It always does the trick. In my opinion, a chiller is just another way to make money off of a gadget that will work but isn't very necessary. My previous comment is simply an observation of my own experience. On another note, I worked in my LFS for a good while and we ran a few chillers just to show them off for sale, and the damn things would either fail or just not do what they said that they'd do. They never sold me. Appologies if I offended anybody that loves their chiller.

 

[PelagicMagic]

no one was offended, you should of just said what you just said instead of just making a random statement. Anyways what lighting did you have on the tank? Also being up north compared to FL makes a difference. But if you got 1200+ watts of light over a large volume of water you probably will need a chiller at some point

 

[KLoomis]

You didnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t offend me, I am just confused how you could think it was a waste of money. For starters, my tank doesnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t even have a heater per say, the water is overly heated by the 4 250 watt mh lights and 4 pumps that are running it. These sources of heat canââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t simply be turned down or off for that matter. Like PelagicMagic said, for some tanks a chiller is very necessary.

I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t know size/type of tank you have but if you have a reef tank and have never experienced heat issues ever than consider yourself lucky.

 

[Tu Ku]

Do you have a heater in your system too?

 

[Tu Ku]

KLoomis, I have had heat issues. I'm sure everyone does at some point. When I do, like I said, I just turn the heater down or off. There have been times when the heat had the tank up really high in the summer and it made me panic, sure a chiller crossed my mind and I dug into my wallet, and compared costs and realized a fan worked better for the few days that I needed to cool the system down. It just isn't something that I would invest in as a permanent situation. Simplicity is my answer for everything. Keeping on the original issue of this forum, IF I did install a chiller, I would keep it either outside or in the basement or somewhere that I didn't have to hear it or look at it. I believe I have every right to give my suggestions on the subject even if they contradict all of everyone elses. This site was built to be a collective of information, wether it's pro or con.

 

[PelagicMagic]

im running at 80 during the day and 78-79 at night. I am going have to add another 250w, maybe 2 to my already existing set of 3 250 watt mh on my 180. When I do that I will probably need the chiller. I have a 1/2hp chiller that needs a new compressor so I am going to fix that instead of forking out 500+ on a new one. I have a mag36 return, mag 9 on my skimmer,a mag 2 on my ca reactor, and 3 seios 1500ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s I have a lot of heat dispersal into the tank. I would rater get away with using fans to cool the tank but some days they just donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t do it.

 

[richfavinger]

How about you guys on the east. I'm in PA, what about outside setups then? We have pushed 100F in summer, and 0F in winter. What about freezing the setup? Or, make the setup removable for winterizing?

The only thing stopping me from getting a chiller is the heat it puts off.
Basement chillers?

Rich

 

[suasponte2/75]

I've never really had a need for chillers once I installed two canopy fans and ran my tank with an open top. I also had a clip on fan running in my sump area for those really hot days up here in northern calif. I've been doing it for a few years and the hottest my tank gets is 84 degrees on those days. That usually only lasts for like a few hours before the lights go out. I also keep the fans running all day on the hot days.

Perhaps you guys in the warmer/more humid climates would need it but I've been fine without one. I'd invest in an AC unit for the house/room before I would buy a chiller. It's probably about the same and the rest of the house can enjoy it as well. I'd suggest trying to go the open top and fans route first before making a big commitment like a chiller.

I'll be going through my first summer with my new 180G but don't think I'll be experiencing anything different from my 60G over the last 5 years. I think it'll actually stay cooler since I have larger canopy fans and larger openings on the tank creating more evaporative cooling. I also only added an extra 250W DE MH pendant for this set-up. My 60G used to fluctuate 1-2 degrees the rest of the year and this new tank's been pretty steady all day so far, minimal fluctuations if any. We'll see during the summer though.

JMO,

Minh

 

[suasponte2/75]

I forgot to mention that I also do a semi-reverse photo cycle which helps with heat issues. Mainly because I'd like to see my tank with the lights on for a while when I come home from work. I run it from 3pm to 11pm with all three turning on/off 30 mins apart to simulate dusk/dawn and not freak out the fish too much when all 750W turns on/off.

Minh

 

[jeffbrig]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7035379#post7035379 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Tu Ku
Waste of money. If you need your tank cooler just turn your heater off. I don't know, maybe in warmer places it's more necessary, but I live in Colorado.

Great idea, but what about those of us that don't even have heaters in our tanks? Seriously. I live in S. FL, where it's warm and humid year round. Because of that, you get a lot less evaporative cooling than someone living in a cool or dry climate. In fact, every aspect of my tank setup was planned to minimize heat retention, yet I still found temperatures creeping up into the mid-80s with the full lights on, even in a room air conditioned to 75. A chiller (plumbed outdoors) allows me to keep the daytime temperature rise in check, and my tank runs a constant 80-81 degrees now.

Sure, fans could do some work to cool the tank, but that would simply put more heat/humidity in my house, further increasing the load on my AC (which runs year round). I prefer to run a chiller and push all that heat straight to the outdoors. And in the event of extended power outages (read: hurricanes), I can run the chiller on the generator to keep the tank from boiling. I can't run the AC on a generator. It's good insurance, IMO.

Jeff

 

[myakkareef]

OK, I do need a chiller. Without it my tank would run close to 90 degrees or even higher with all the equipment outside. I am in South West FLorida we had one day this year in the 30's I believe, so yes my heaters probally kicked on a few times during the night but on thoses ame days my chiller probably ran during the days.
As far as evap in the box, it is actually less then my enclosed top tank with 4 fans blowing over the water surface for cooling. I replace evap 100% with kalk drip from a dosing pump and kalk reactor. The kalk reactor is the tall cylinder in the outside box, the supply to the RODI tank is from inside the utility room of the house. I also have an emergency float setup incase evap out produces the drip...
The box with the large attic fan attached is basically what they used to call a "swamp cooler" back before they A/c here in the sunshine state..It does create extra evap, but really I wish I would evaporate more. Remember though that we are in Florida where humidity is really high. This setup in a dry climate evaporation would probably be extreme...Then again in that climate maybe youwould not need the chiller, which then you would not need the attic fan...Freezes may pose a problem that I do not have to deal with...

 

[sds]

I will say that a heater is a good idea for winter time use of the chiller. I am an hvac tech. and compressors that run in the winter have heaters built on the compressors to keep the oil in the compressor warm. The other things that need to be made sure of is ventilation and keeping the condenser coil clean. If you have these things you should be good to go. I hope this helps