Should I ditch my chiller?

brett559

New member
I have a 42g tank with an Aqua Euro chiller (1/13 HP I think). I've had the chiller (and tank) for three years or so. The chiller is starting to have some problems. The temperature sensor is way off. The water is 78, and the chiller thinks it's 84! This brand of chiller only lets you adjust the temperature up or down 5 degrees. And dialing down the full 5 degrees brings me to the 84 degree reading (i.e. I can't get it to calibrate any closer).

And now the thing seems to run at weird intervals.

I'm pretty much done with it. Should I buy a new one? Or just go without a chiller?

My tank is in my office. Office AC runs during the day, turns off at 5:00 pm (same time as my lights). I checked last night around 8:00 pm and it was only 81 degrees in my office. It was over 90 degrees outside still (hot in CA!). The office is well insulated and I close the windows.

I'm inclined to just ditch the chiller and deal with higher temps in the summer evenings and weekends.

Any thoughts?
 
If you don't need a chiller.. Don't run a chiller..

Sounds like in order to answer your question one would need to log the office temperature over time and see if its "acceptable" throughout the 24 hour period..
Tanks can certainly creep up in to the 83-85 deg range for a bit typically without problems..
Of course office temp does not equal aquarium temp so you need to see what the typical delta is over ambient due to pumps/lighting,etc...
 
In the age of LEDs and external motors, there isn’t much a chiller can do that some 4” fans can’t.

You can all but eliminate cabinet and canopy heat build-up with a fan blowing in and a fan blowing out in each. As long as ambient stays reasonable, you should be fine. Typically, the only trouble comes during long weekends in the summer where A/C might be off for 3-4 days.
 
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