Using tap water to cool my aquarium

A

amuderick

New member
I don't have to use a cooling system in my tank but am considering something that would allow me to stop using my home AC system to maintain temperature in the warmer months. It seems a pretty inefficient system on nights, weekends, time away, etc.

I was looking at chillers and, of course they all require electricity. I like to plan for the worst...hot summer blackout and/or extended AC system failure. I know these things will invariably happen when I am away.

I couldn't find anyone who uses tap water as an electricity free cooling method. That is, to flow tap water through a heat exchanger in the sump and bring down the temperature that way. Water is cheap and plentiful, where I live anyway. And the tap is around 53F consistently.

It would be possible to setup an electronically actuated valve, a thermostat with a few D cells as power backup and cool this way.

Thoughts, anyone?
 
Lol like geothermal cooling or something your kinda wide open on this hard to understand you could run the water thru your system with tubing and some stainless steal dont use copper or brass lol. You would need and apex and a temperture probe to make something like this work and they are 300 dollars.
 
Oh you would have to do this thru gravity or else you would need a pump and resivoir l. You could drill a hole in your sump and have it drian out. An apex controller with a temp pprobe5hen set your desired tempature the you would also need an electric valve . Or a resivoir with an overflow to a drain and a pump but using a pump could be cost effective depending on much water you would need to cool your tank.
 
Randy Holmes Farley and I have both pisted using geothermal and then watering the yard with the water. I use inexpensive poly tubing coiled up in the sump. I ran it all the time as part of my system wad out of doors in south Louisiana. A solenoid valve with a thermostats should cost less than $100.
Patrick
 
It would certainly work, given a sufficient length of submerged tubing, flow of tank water across the tubing, and flow of cold water through the tubing.

You might, however, find that it's far more costly to run that much municipal tap water just to cool your tank down than an electric chiller. Even if your municipal water rate is very low.
 
I use tap water for this purpose.

I have it on a solenoid controlled by a temperature controller. It runs the tap water through a big coil of small diameter plastic tubing in the sump, then out the basement window to water things in the yard and replace evaporation in our small pond. :)

How effective it is in terms of the water needed depends on how cool your tap water is. Ours is plenty cool enough (60's or lower much of the year), while in some places it isn't cool enough to do much at all.
 
I got my idea for one from Randy. My excess water and RO goes out to a landscape pond in front of my house as an a top off.
 
Randy, how long do you have to run your tap water through the coil to lower your temp? How many gallons is the tank? If your not running halides this should work pretty well as long as your using the water to water something outside during the time your tank gets hot, good idea, i would like to hear a little more about it.
 
Why not just use a fan blowing across the water on some sort of a temperature controller? I use a pair of 8" clip on fans from Walmart to maintain temps in my 600+ gallon system during the summer months. It's saved me from having to run my chiller for more than 2 years now and it works remarkably well. Do a search on Evaporative Cooling.

Keep in mind that temps in most of the reefs where our tanks inhabitants originate regularly see temps in excess of 82*. I allow my tank to peak at 82 during the summer but the fans can keep my tank substantially cooler if I desire. I've found that my corals grow faster during the warmer months and my fish are equally as healthy. The key is having the fans as close to the water as possible and blowing across the waters surface. The only downside to this method is evaporation and as such, an ATO is pretty important. That said, I evaporate about 5 gallons a day in the summer which isn't bad considering my overall water volume.
 
slief said:
Why not just use a fan blowing across the water on some sort of a temperature controller? I use a pair of 8" clip on fans from Walmart to maintain temps in my 600+ gallon system during the summer months. It's saved me from having to run my chiller for more than 2 years now and it works remarkably well. Do a search on Evaporative Cooling.

.
Click to expand...

Fans help, and may be all you need in Simi Ca, but in the hot humid parts of the country, fans are often not enough.

FWIW, I did have a fan on a controller in the past. :)
 
Piper27 said:
Randy, how long do you have to run your tap water through the coil to lower your temp? How many gallons is the tank? If your not running halides this should work pretty well as long as your using the water to water something outside during the time your tank gets hot, good idea, i would like to hear a little more about it.
Click to expand...

I don't keep track of it, but I do have heavy lighting (2 x 250 w DE metal halides, 110 w VHO actinic, etc.

In my system, it has never not been adequate. :)

FWIW, the math is fairly simple. The water exits at about tank temp, and if it comes in ten degrees cooler, then running one tank volume through it will roughly provide the ability to cool the tank ten degrees, once. :)
 
If change in temperature of cooling water is 10 degrees, to calculate heat removed it is necessary to know the flow rate. Assume 100G/Hr. Then 834 lbs per hr times 10 degress, therefore 8340 BTU/Hr are removed each hour. One ton equals 12,500 BTU/Hr equals 1HP.
This set up would be equivalent to a 2/3 HP chiller.
Patrick
 
Just raise your house temp a bit :)
Otherwise if you freeze abunch of rodi water into ice cube trays they're perfect for cooling the tank and evaporation.
 
CapnReefer said:
Just raise your house temp a bit :)
Otherwise if you freeze abunch of rodi water into ice cube trays they're perfect for cooling the tank and evaporation.
Click to expand...

I prefer to use plastic pop bottles of frozen tap water. When the ice turns to water I just re freeze plus no water introduced to the tank:thumbsup:
 
I love my tap water cooler controlled by a temp controller. My 400g system never varies more than 1 degree. Simple, easy, and much cheaper and efficient than a chiller. I'm on a well so probably have cooler water than some who are on city water.

Mine runs through about 250' of 1/4" tubing in a 100G sump.
 
Aquarist007 said:
I prefer to use plastic pop bottles of frozen tap water. When the ice turns to water I just re freeze plus no water introduced to the tank:thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Kinda low tech but I agree and the cheapest option I have heard. After a while I'm sure you can get a handle on how much each bottle would change the temp and for how long.
 
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