Jigsaw Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 hey man, what is the avg. temp in that tank of yours? I'm trying to set up a pico w/o a chiller (coldwater I mean) and I can't get it cool enough. I am thinking about topping off with cold water and seeing if that will help, and throw a few ice cubes in too, let me know! -Pat Link to comment
Zulander50 Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 You are going to find that you are going to have issues with your animals if the temperature stays to high. These fish and inverts are used to cold water. You didnt say what the temp is in your tank but its got to be in the high 60's if not the mid 70's. Its a glass tank right? If so than you might have some sweating of the tank if and when you install a chiller to get it down to 50. It looks cool though. You do not see people doing the temperate system. Good luck..... Link to comment
Mynameskenny19 Posted August 11, 2008 Author Share Posted August 11, 2008 hey man, what is the avg. temp in that tank of yours? I'm trying to set up a pico w/o a chiller (coldwater I mean) and I can't get it cool enough. I am thinking about topping off with cold water and seeing if that will help, and throw a few ice cubes in too, let me know! -Pat Our average temp is 61 - 65 degrees F. Dont use ice cubes as a chilling alternative. If you do, then your salinity would drop a lot! Right now, we're just using three 1 liter frozen bottles of water and tossing them into the tank. It works and keeps the temp around 61 - 65 degrees F. And auto topoff with coldwater wont work either man. Sorry to burst your bubble. How big is your pico? Depending on the size, get 3/8" FLEXIBLE copper tubing and some compression fittings and connect that to a refridgerator unit. Make it a closed loop where the coolant just goes around the outside bottom of the tank. One of my friends did that as a sorta "tweak" to my mini fridge idea thats somewhere on this site, but it only worked for our 55 which broke and we now have a 75 and that doesnt do a thing to cool it down. But yeah, try that idea, it works pretty good. You are going to find that you are going to have issues with your animals if the temperature stays to high. These fish and inverts are used to cold water. You didnt say what the temp is in your tank but its got to be in the high 60's if not the mid 70's. Its a glass tank right? If so than you might have some sweating of the tank if and when you install a chiller to get it down to 50. It looks cool though. You do not see people doing the temperate system. Good luck..... We keep it at 61 - 65 degres F with the use of frozen 1 liter water bottles that we refreeze every 8 hours. Link to comment
Jigsaw Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 yeah, I've been thinking of different things, insulating the tank etc. The ice cubes in the tank was something I did not elaborate on. What I did was put about 10 ice cubes in a zipblock bag and floated it on top until the temp went to about 62 or so. I don't want to have to do this periodically though, without any cooling it stays at exactly 70.0. I suppose I could use a frozen water bottle until winter... Thanks for the info though! -Pat Link to comment
smedge Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 Does Humboldt Bay house Humboldt squid? If so you definately need a few in there :-D They make mantis shrimp look like playtoys. Link to comment
Mynameskenny19 Posted August 11, 2008 Author Share Posted August 11, 2008 yeah, I've been thinking of different things, insulating the tank etc. The ice cubes in the tank was something I did not elaborate on. What I did was put about 10 ice cubes in a zipblock bag and floated it on top until the temp went to about 62 or so. I don't want to have to do this periodically though, without any cooling it stays at exactly 70.0. I suppose I could use a frozen water bottle until winter... Thanks for the info though! -Pat Yeah, the water bottle work pretty good for us right now, but eventually we're going to buy a chiller. Money is just tight on our aquarium budget, so we might wait a few months. How big is your tank Pat??? Does Humboldt Bay house Humboldt squid? If so you definately need a few in there :-D They make mantis shrimp look like playtoys. Nope, Humboldt squid come from the Gulf of California or Sea of Cortez and they like the warmer temperatures donw there and also, Humboldt bay isnt deep enough for those squid. Another thing: Humboldt Squid are about the same length of our 75g!!!! Link to comment
Jigsaw Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 oh yeah I know what you mean about the budget haha, my tank is 2.5 gallons. I might have to scrap the idea though, it just doesn't seem worth the hassle without a chiller IMO Link to comment
Mynameskenny19 Posted August 11, 2008 Author Share Posted August 11, 2008 oh yeah I know what you mean about the budget haha, my tank is 2.5 gallons. I might have to scrap the idea though, it just doesn't seem worth the hassle without a chiller IMO Yeah, i know what you mean about the hassle without a chiller too lol. I would say that if you were going to use a 2.5 to a 7g, get a 1/20hp chiller. Oh, we've been getting news about lots of big tanks lately and we WERE going to buy a 300g aquarium, but it was cracked and the guy was going to sell it for $200, but we didnt buy cuz of the crack. Our neighbor's brother-in-law has a 700g made of 1 inch acrylic. It's pretty bad @ass! Link to comment
Jigsaw Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 yeah, I was actually thinking of putting a bunch of ice/cold water in a cooler and putting tubing in it (Like a fridge chiller) and having it circulate through there and back into the tank, the cooler keeps the temps at around 39-42 degrees so we will see what happens haha. Link to comment
Mynameskenny19 Posted August 12, 2008 Author Share Posted August 12, 2008 Sounds like a good hillbilly idea that "I" would think of! Let me know how it goes man! Link to comment
Jigsaw Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 so far so good haha. Its running at 60 degrees, I'm actually going to make a thread about it in a sec here with pics etc. It actually worked a lot better than I thought it would, with the cooler all sealed up (minus the holes for the two tubes going in the tank). It dropped from 70.3 F(roughly) to 60.0 F in 10 min or so. Very surprised that it worked. -Pat Link to comment
Mynameskenny19 Posted August 12, 2008 Author Share Posted August 12, 2008 Wait, are you talking about something like a water cooler or swamp cooler? Where theres a drum spinning over water to make the air cooler? If so, wouldnt the salt jam up the cooler? Just thinking aloud here lol I have an empty 2.5 up in my room right now so I think Im gonna go experiment with "hillbilly cooling" ideas. Ill let you know what I come up with. Oh and everybody else, Ill have some new pictures up tomorrow. We just hooked up our Magnum 350 canister filter and we're testing it out on our tank before we take any pitures. We also have around 20 more anenomes of 4 different species and are feeding them every 2 days. Link to comment
Jigsaw Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 yeah like a water cooler that you'd go on a picnic with haha. I'm not sure what exactly a swamp cooler is haha. Yeah test stuff out and lemme know how it goes man! -Pat Link to comment
Mynameskenny19 Posted August 12, 2008 Author Share Posted August 12, 2008 Here's a swamp cooler: Where #2 and #3 is, I was thinking that you could just put in a line going from the tank to the cooler in a closed loop made stainless steel maybe since copper is a big no-no. Do you see how my idea works? Kenny. Link to comment
Jamie Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 omg, swamp cooler gave me the best idea ever. Have a heat sink above the tank. Slowly drip fresh water over it and have a computer fan blowing over it. Evaporation would keep the heat sink cold, so it would just keep sucking heat out of the tank. The only problem is the method of connecting it to the tank, you couldn't use metal. Can you think of anything conductive that wouldn't rust? -Jamie Link to comment
Mynameskenny19 Posted August 12, 2008 Author Share Posted August 12, 2008 How big is your tank Jamie? Depending on what size, this would be pretty easy, the bigger the better: On the bottom black plastic border of the tank, drill horizontally with a 1/4" drill bit. Get 4-5 ft of flexible copper tubing, crimp an end closed, and coil it up FLAT and put that under the glass part of the tank with the open end connected to a RADIATOR from a car or something like that filled with water. Place a fan over the top of that and turn it on. The water in the radiator and the tubing will begin to cool the tank since the coil is sitting right underneath the glass. Trust me, that will probably work since Ive jimmy-rigged lots of stuff like that that I couldnt afford. I should make a thread on "homemade coldwater chiller ideas/theories/experiments". Link to comment
Jigsaw Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 I've never seen a swamp cooler to be honest, is it something you buy or you make? That chiller sounds like a great idea! Link to comment
Mynameskenny19 Posted August 12, 2008 Author Share Posted August 12, 2008 Both: buy them brand new or make one if youre bored or smart or both. lol Here it is again: Link to comment
Jamie Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 How big is your tank Jamie? Depending on what size, this would be pretty easy, the bigger the better: On the bottom black plastic border of the tank, drill horizontally with a 1/4" drill bit. Get 4-5 ft of flexible copper tubing, crimp an end closed, and coil it up FLAT and put that under the glass part of the tank with the open end connected to a RADIATOR from a car or something like that filled with water. Place a fan over the top of that and turn it on. The water in the radiator and the tubing will begin to cool the tank since the coil is sitting right underneath the glass. Trust me, that will probably work since Ive jimmy-rigged lots of stuff like that that I couldnt afford. I should make a thread on "homemade coldwater chiller ideas/theories/experiments". Well, my coldwater tank already has a chiller, so I won't be needing to make one any time soon, but very interesting idea. Unfortunately I don't have any spare car radiators laying around, so I'll have to wait till I come across one at least. I've been working on my heat sink idea, and might try it just out of curiosity. It'd be a really cheap way to make a little chiller if it worked, and it would hardly use any electricity, just a computer fan. You could even attach a temp controller to the fan so it would shut off when the tank got down to a certain temp. That would be an excellent thread, but it seems you've already made it! -Jamie Link to comment
Jigsaw Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 What about Peltier pads used for CPU cooling? I found this on ebay a little while ago and I think it would work pretty well, but how can you hook it up to a tank? Just stick it on the glass and put it by a fan acting as a heatsink?? Link to comment
fiction101 Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 Did someone attack your tank with a razor blade?! Link to comment
Mynameskenny19 Posted August 13, 2008 Author Share Posted August 13, 2008 What about Peltier pads used for CPU cooling? I found this on ebay a little while ago and I think it would work pretty well, but how can you hook it up to a tank? Just stick it on the glass and put it by a fan acting as a heatsink?? I have no idea and have never even heard of a peltier pad. Sorry about that. Did someone attack your tank with a razor blade?! What do you mean by that? Well, my coldwater tank already has a chiller, so I won't be needing to make one any time soon, but very interesting idea. Unfortunately I don't have any spare car radiators laying around, so I'll have to wait till I come across one at least. I've been working on my heat sink idea, and might try it just out of curiosity. It'd be a really cheap way to make a little chiller if it worked, and it would hardly use any electricity, just a computer fan. You could even attach a temp controller to the fan so it would shut off when the tank got down to a certain temp. That would be an excellent thread, but it seems you've already made it! -Jamie That would be pretty to to do. Hey, "IF" you ever do come across a car radiator, maybe you can think of a way to put that into your idea, then lay the radiator flat with your 5.5 on top of it as a stand and build a little wooden cover up thingy to make it look more snazzy. Just a thought though. Link to comment
Jigsaw Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 I have 2 or 3 computer fans just laying around, what's your idea? Though I may not be able to acquire a radiator or swamp cooler Link to comment
Mynameskenny19 Posted August 13, 2008 Author Share Posted August 13, 2008 I have 2 or 3 computer fans just laying around, what's your idea? Though I may not be able to acquire a radiator or swamp cooler Read the top of this page and youll see one of my ideas lol. I think im going to make a Surge Device for my 2.5 first and then probably my 20 long upstairs once i get it figured out. Ill post pics of our new Magnum 350 in an hour or so. And maybe some pics of my tanks upstairs. Link to comment
Mynameskenny19 Posted August 13, 2008 Author Share Posted August 13, 2008 Here's 2 pics of our Magnum 350 canister as promised...just a tad late though. From a Distance Close Up Link to comment
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