Just got the coolest chiller!
- Thread starter Fliger
- Start date
Bean,
Not sure if we will be on the same page, but it is not because I do not understand wattage. But that OK, that's what open discussion is all about.
In consumption, a watt is a watt, but when talking about heat transfer into aquariums, it does not always correlate. Some products transfer heat into the air and some into the water. Pumps for example. A MaxiJet at 20w will transfer more heat into the water than a Tunze stream Electronic running at the same wattage due to the fact that the transformer is external. Now heat will be generated into the air, but will not have the same effect on water temp.
I guess I should of elaborated my point better in that regard.
Bean and RobbyG,
I understand that you are apprehensive about new products coming to market, but lets examine this point a little more.
To give a true comparison, Lets decide on a chiller model to use as a base without naming a name. IE Brand X is 1/3hp 480w 5.2 amp and 2620 BTU according to man specs. Then we can compare. I would like for the figures to be chose from you, so it does not look as I am choosing the least efficient one.
Then we will needed to consider the wattage of feed pump required to get a picture of total wattage needed to run the device. Choose which every pump you wish.
Then we can discuss the COP to a more precise level instead of making blanket statements that may be false.
I will hook the Ocean Geotronic I have running on a Kill-A-Watt to get that figure for you also. If you could do the same for the chillers you are running that would be great.
Let's also measure the intake temp and the exhaust temps to get a comparison on that.
Are you up for that?
Not sure if we will be on the same page, but it is not because I do not understand wattage. But that OK, that's what open discussion is all about.
In consumption, a watt is a watt, but when talking about heat transfer into aquariums, it does not always correlate. Some products transfer heat into the air and some into the water. Pumps for example. A MaxiJet at 20w will transfer more heat into the water than a Tunze stream Electronic running at the same wattage due to the fact that the transformer is external. Now heat will be generated into the air, but will not have the same effect on water temp.
I guess I should of elaborated my point better in that regard.
Bean and RobbyG,
I understand that you are apprehensive about new products coming to market, but lets examine this point a little more.
To give a true comparison, Lets decide on a chiller model to use as a base without naming a name. IE Brand X is 1/3hp 480w 5.2 amp and 2620 BTU according to man specs. Then we can compare. I would like for the figures to be chose from you, so it does not look as I am choosing the least efficient one.
Then we will needed to consider the wattage of feed pump required to get a picture of total wattage needed to run the device. Choose which every pump you wish.
Then we can discuss the COP to a more precise level instead of making blanket statements that may be false.
I will hook the Ocean Geotronic I have running on a Kill-A-Watt to get that figure for you also. If you could do the same for the chillers you are running that would be great.
Let's also measure the intake temp and the exhaust temps to get a comparison on that.
Are you up for that?
TheMoneyPit
Premium Member
.
RobbyG
Active member
Finsreef I am up for it but I doubt we can get any trully useful data because the testing sites will have totaly different temperatures and equipment.
My Ambient temp is around 90 deg and there is No AC in the room with the tank. My tank is 90gal + 27 Gal sump. The chiller is a 1/4 HP probe type chiller. I use a Dart Pump and sedra 5000 on the skimmer, I have no idea how much heat that plus the lights are adding. The Tank can come down from about 82 deg to 78 deg in about 2-3 hours with a constant consumption of about 460 Watts (The range is based on the Ambient temp at the time) 3 hours on the hottest days and approx 2 hours at night.
I cant see how we could ever get these numbers to jive into anything scientific without knowing specifics on heat generated by the lights, and pumps.
I am impressed that so far Fliger seems to be getting good results, and if he declares it worth while Investment then that would be good enough for me. At this point I am basing most of my critisism on little experiments I did with Peltiers and CPU's back a few years ago.
My Ambient temp is around 90 deg and there is No AC in the room with the tank. My tank is 90gal + 27 Gal sump. The chiller is a 1/4 HP probe type chiller. I use a Dart Pump and sedra 5000 on the skimmer, I have no idea how much heat that plus the lights are adding. The Tank can come down from about 82 deg to 78 deg in about 2-3 hours with a constant consumption of about 460 Watts (The range is based on the Ambient temp at the time) 3 hours on the hottest days and approx 2 hours at night.
I cant see how we could ever get these numbers to jive into anything scientific without knowing specifics on heat generated by the lights, and pumps.
I am impressed that so far Fliger seems to be getting good results, and if he declares it worth while Investment then that would be good enough for me. At this point I am basing most of my critisism on little experiments I did with Peltiers and CPU's back a few years ago.
BeanAnimal
Premium Member
I had a lengthy reply typed out...
Instead I want to leave this thread alone with a basic point.
I am basing my comments on the fact that poorly constructed chillers easily reach a 60% efficiency with regards to watts per btu on their worst day.
ON it's best day a state of the art peltier junction with a very low voltage/high current supply and tremendous Delta T will at best achieve 60% efficiency. When you can show me that peltiers do better than that, then we can have an honest debate about the technology.
I don't have the time nor energy to carry out a pointless test to prove something that is already known. Peltiers are very simple, very well documented devices. The advances in PSU, junction doping techniques and Heatsinks have helped but 80% efficiency is just not in the cards.
Note:
The 60% efficiency of phase change devices is a somewhat low estimate based on todays units and compressors. The new SEER mandates are pushing this much higher.
I may even consider buying one of the TEC based devices in the future, as they are small and silent with little need for maintenance. They may even be cheaper in the long run due to those reduced maintenance costs.
Thanks for holding a civil conversation
Bean
Instead I want to leave this thread alone with a basic point.
I am basing my comments on the fact that poorly constructed chillers easily reach a 60% efficiency with regards to watts per btu on their worst day.
ON it's best day a state of the art peltier junction with a very low voltage/high current supply and tremendous Delta T will at best achieve 60% efficiency. When you can show me that peltiers do better than that, then we can have an honest debate about the technology.
I don't have the time nor energy to carry out a pointless test to prove something that is already known. Peltiers are very simple, very well documented devices. The advances in PSU, junction doping techniques and Heatsinks have helped but 80% efficiency is just not in the cards.
Note:
The 60% efficiency of phase change devices is a somewhat low estimate based on todays units and compressors. The new SEER mandates are pushing this much higher.
I may even consider buying one of the TEC based devices in the future, as they are small and silent with little need for maintenance. They may even be cheaper in the long run due to those reduced maintenance costs.
Thanks for holding a civil conversation
Bean
Fliger
New member
Hey man, I wish I could help ya - maybe when I move in a couple months. I'll be moving everything (uggh) and I'll run some quick tests for you based on different room temps. That's an awfully warm room. Everything still working great but I have been out looking at land the past couple days so the extent of my reefkeeping is poking my head in twice a day to make sure it didn't crash!
Fliger
New member
Oh man, you really do live there? Jealous! :eek1:
Everything going great so far. I got a few hours last night and reorg'd my stand. I'm going to keep the chiller in the stand for a couple months so I think I'll be able to replicate that 90. I had planned on keeping a door open to keep things cool but I can mess around with it for you. I'll put in a therm inside the cabinet.
My opinion so far is that I friggin love this thing. I'm using a MJ900 but will be moving pumps around and put a 1200 on it. I am using the chiller plus the fan over the sump, its the small chrome one that Target/Wal-Mart (boooooohhhh :lol: ) sells. It has kept the range of .2 - .3 F. Although I haven't turned off the fan, my thought is the chiller would keep this within one degree F. I'm at a disadvantage because I'm using a Lighthouse controller so I have the fan on that - and the chiller has its own controller. If I had a more complex, controllable controller I'd use them in succession.
I also did take the watt meter off the MH so I'll get it hooked up this weekend hopefully.
Gotta run now. What island do you live on?
Everything going great so far. I got a few hours last night and reorg'd my stand. I'm going to keep the chiller in the stand for a couple months so I think I'll be able to replicate that 90. I had planned on keeping a door open to keep things cool but I can mess around with it for you. I'll put in a therm inside the cabinet.
My opinion so far is that I friggin love this thing. I'm using a MJ900 but will be moving pumps around and put a 1200 on it. I am using the chiller plus the fan over the sump, its the small chrome one that Target/Wal-Mart (boooooohhhh :lol: ) sells. It has kept the range of .2 - .3 F. Although I haven't turned off the fan, my thought is the chiller would keep this within one degree F. I'm at a disadvantage because I'm using a Lighthouse controller so I have the fan on that - and the chiller has its own controller. If I had a more complex, controllable controller I'd use them in succession.
I also did take the watt meter off the MH so I'll get it hooked up this weekend hopefully.
Gotta run now. What island do you live on?
BeanAnimal
Premium Member
You do realize how efficient evaporation (the fan blowing on the sump) is don't you?
Fliger
New member
Uhhh ... yeah - thats what I've been doing for a while. I guess I'm coming to close to 20 years at this reefing thing and have had a variety of chiller/fan setups. Plus I live in Arizona and altho I've never used one, swamp coolers are quite popular here.
Currently with the amount of heat input on my tank, I needed three fans running almost all the time (100% of the light cycle and on/off the other 12 hours). I was evaporating a LOT, over 4G/day. Since I ran a ca rx, I use kalk in my top-off (actually i just took that offline since i need to streamline my tank while i'm showing my house) to offset ph. So dripping 4G/day of supersaturated kalk wasn't working.
I think we have different stances on equipment. I'm an avid hobbyist, and although I'm not extraordinarily wealthy - I have enough money in my reef budget to keep a nice tank and minimize my workload. I'm not really into DIY, and silence/size are two big things for me. Workload is up there as well, as I travel a lot - and am out a lot even when in town. Since I hooked up the chiller, I now evap less than 1G/day. Which is why I don't think my fan is on much - especially given the openness of my tank design. I actually NEED to run the fan to make sure I get kalk in the tank. This is the only pic I have uploaded showing the top of my tank. The light you see through the glass draws almost exactly 1000W with the IC660 (330x2 + 340).
This chiller replaced a 1/3 hp drop-in chiller (most currently aquanetics) - which was killer but the chiller drop-in bars were too big for the Elos sump.
I think one other thing that gets lost here is that this is a total temperature control system. It cools, and heats - and also comes with a controller. I was thinking eventually I'd put it on the master controller (replacing Lighthouse with either BioII or ACIII Pro) but I don't think I will. Since the dual stage works so well. I'll use my master controller as a safeguard only.
If you have any other questions/concerns about the product (or my intelligence), please don't hesitate to ask.
Currently with the amount of heat input on my tank, I needed three fans running almost all the time (100% of the light cycle and on/off the other 12 hours). I was evaporating a LOT, over 4G/day. Since I ran a ca rx, I use kalk in my top-off (actually i just took that offline since i need to streamline my tank while i'm showing my house) to offset ph. So dripping 4G/day of supersaturated kalk wasn't working.
I think we have different stances on equipment. I'm an avid hobbyist, and although I'm not extraordinarily wealthy - I have enough money in my reef budget to keep a nice tank and minimize my workload. I'm not really into DIY, and silence/size are two big things for me. Workload is up there as well, as I travel a lot - and am out a lot even when in town. Since I hooked up the chiller, I now evap less than 1G/day. Which is why I don't think my fan is on much - especially given the openness of my tank design. I actually NEED to run the fan to make sure I get kalk in the tank. This is the only pic I have uploaded showing the top of my tank. The light you see through the glass draws almost exactly 1000W with the IC660 (330x2 + 340).
This chiller replaced a 1/3 hp drop-in chiller (most currently aquanetics) - which was killer but the chiller drop-in bars were too big for the Elos sump.
I think one other thing that gets lost here is that this is a total temperature control system. It cools, and heats - and also comes with a controller. I was thinking eventually I'd put it on the master controller (replacing Lighthouse with either BioII or ACIII Pro) but I don't think I will. Since the dual stage works so well. I'll use my master controller as a safeguard only.
If you have any other questions/concerns about the product (or my intelligence), please don't hesitate to ask.
BeanAnimal
Premium Member
Never doubted your intelligence The Heat capacity of water and phase change are lost on some people...
Like I said, I may even consider one of these devices (a single fan takes care of my temperature, but the sound bothers me sometimes.) I have had plans of building a DIY chiller out of a window shaker, but can't justify the cost for the little bit of cooling I need.
The Heat capacity of water and phase change are lost on some people... Like I said, I may even consider one of these devices (a single fan takes care of my temperature, but the sound bothers me sometimes.) I have had plans of building a DIY chiller out of a window shaker, but can't justify the cost for the little bit of cooling I need.
layer3switchguy
New member
Hi Fliger,
May I ask how this is attached to the aquarium plumbing? Also, my tank size is a 54g corner tank. Can I get away with a Model 150?
I'm new to reef tanks (and fish) and need a chiller thats small, quiet and simple to hook up. Sounds like this will fit the bill. My tank seems to want to stay at 84F despite my best efforts to keep it cooler.
Many thanks!
May I ask how this is attached to the aquarium plumbing? Also, my tank size is a 54g corner tank. Can I get away with a Model 150?
I'm new to reef tanks (and fish) and need a chiller thats small, quiet and simple to hook up. Sounds like this will fit the bill. My tank seems to want to stay at 84F despite my best efforts to keep it cooler.
Many thanks!
Fliger
New member
Hey layer3 - I think Finreef would be able to help you the most on models. I have the 400 and there are many other smaller sizes. But I think Finsreef or a few others are using some of the smaller units. I think someone is even doing wattage testing on the smaller units.
As far as hookup you need a powerhead, and some vinyl hose. I just found some stuff lying around (i have closets full, lol) and it was a little too big so I am using plastic clamps to hold them on. It takes less than 10 minutes to take it outta the box, hook up the powerhead, plug in the controller and plug it in.
But as far as sizes - I'll have to defer to the people selling the product.
Hope this helps!
As far as hookup you need a powerhead, and some vinyl hose. I just found some stuff lying around (i have closets full, lol) and it was a little too big so I am using plastic clamps to hold them on. It takes less than 10 minutes to take it outta the box, hook up the powerhead, plug in the controller and plug it in.
But as far as sizes - I'll have to defer to the people selling the product.
Hope this helps!
layer3switchguy
New member
Thanks. I sent a PM to Finsreef to see about sizing for my tank.
Regards,
L3
Regards,
L3
So does this thing not put out much heat like your standard chiller with its nuclear reactor? 
That would be a big plus for me as I'm thinking about adding a chiller but would have to plumb it outside.
Also, for a tank in the 400g range how would a peltier chiller do? I can't get the 900 page to come up so no idea of its capacity.
That would be a big plus for me as I'm thinking about adding a chiller but would have to plumb it outside.
Also, for a tank in the 400g range how would a peltier chiller do? I can't get the 900 page to come up so no idea of its capacity.
