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Nano Chillers...


Micro-Reefs Aquariums

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Micro-Reefs Aquariums

Kudos,

 

Go to Nanocustoms, for delivering us the details on these two awesome chillers to hit the market...

 

The prices are very affordable and I wanted to let all Northern California reefers, that includes me that Aquarium Concepts in Hayward, Ca will take pre-orders...

 

The prices are identical and the neat thing is we won't pay shipping...

 

I spoke directly to Ken the owner and he told me to spread the cool news...

 

So LA based reefers, head over to Chris at nanocustoms and pre-order your nano chiller....

 

Michael Guerrero

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What a timely topic for me!

 

I received a 12 gallon nanotank for my birthday, delivered to my office. What a great thing, to be able to watch my "sea critters" while working.

 

The office is "usually" around 68 degrees. But a month or so ago, on an unusually warm weekend, the maintenance folks decided to turn off the ventilation. Needless to say, on Monday morning I had the sad task of disposing of several of my creatures, and nursing others back to health. I was particulary glad my baby snowflake eel survived.

 

Since that time, my fix has been to use a "home made" pvc grid/screen top. Every Friday afternoon I unplug the light, open the lid, and install the "screen lid." This allows the heat to dissapate and has done the trick since the disaster.

 

But I am definately in the market for a chiller. I want to do things right.

 

Also, today I aquired a 24 gallon nanocube. A friend who owned the tank took a week long vacation and, not thinking, turned off his AC for the week. Temps here in Georgia have been warm, so he came home to a dead tank. He called me and said he was done, come and get it. So now I have the pleasure of setting up another tank, in my house. I want to do things right, for both tanks.

 

Can't wait to see what the cost is going to be.

 

Whirlwind

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RayWhisperer

Welcome to N-R.com.

Keep us posted on how things progress. BTW, Do you need a chiller for the 24? It will be at your house after all.

 

 

 

Edit: Just pre ordered my nano chiller!!!!!! $296.96 after shipping.

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No, I don't need a chiller for my house. Just for the "desk tank" at the office. Especially when I'm away on trips (I teach scuba on the side), I don't want to have to worry about burdening anyone else with the "weekend duty" of the screen contraption.

 

Whirlwind

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  • 3 weeks later...

My tank was at 87f today!!!! That's it!! I've tried everything from fans to icecube/packs in ziplock baggies to running my A/C more than ussual, just to keep the tank in the low 80s. I don't know what I would do if I had to go on vacation. I can't wait until the end of July for JBJ to get their S**t together. I really don't know what they're thinking. They could totally dominate the market if they had it out now. They should make it a very reasonably pricedalso, since their NanoCubes have this huge temperature flaw.

 

Anyway.....I'm looking into the Pacific Coast Imports CL-85. Not only does it chill, but it serves as a heater as well. The only downfall is it's designed for up to 20 gallons. However, i'm not to concerned with that because the liverock, coral and fish displace much of the water anyways. My LFS has it for $269.

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i don't think i've posted it before and i normally don't like to post things i did/do but $270? yikes! so i figure maybe it can help some of the people with less moolah available (like myself :( ).

 

i did a diy cooler (i don't really call it a chiller because it only suppresses the temp about 4F~7F). but it was uber-cheap and very easy to setup. heck, i did it and haven't electrocuted myself.

 

nano-cooler

 

it's been set up for over a year but i took it offline over the winter, of course. but it took all of 1-minute to re-start (basically just needed to re-start the siphon) and plug the cooler back in.

 

the original setup and conversion took around 30-minutes, that's not including letting the marine paint (serves as a water sealant for the cooling medium) dry though. hth

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Tiny, what do you think about anodized aluminum or borosilicate glass for a heat exchange? Me thinks Im going to develop a diy chiller

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My buddies just shattered a pyrex dish by putting hot chicken into it while it was cold on a cold counter... Not sure how much better the hard glass (boro) holds up, and the pan was tempered (built-up internal tension, like me ;) ) but yeah... I like the aluminum idea. And anodized anything is cool.

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Im sorry I find that unlikely. A temperature difference of that much will not shatter borosilicate. I work it every other day and go from 100+degree celcius hot plates into ice baths all the time. Borosilicate is tough stuff. While it wont hold up well for rapid temp changes, it will not break because of that. Perhaps something else was at cause.

 

 

Please read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrex

 

I thought about the anodized aluminum and Im still doing research. The anodizing process can cause micro inperfections which still give opportunities for an oxidizing agent to come in contact with the raw Al. As for the actual dioxide complex, I don't know if it will even hold up to the redox elements in our tank. Even in trace amounts, you still have both Li and F.

 

Much work is to be done.

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Tiny, what do you think about anodized aluminum or borosilicate glass for a heat exchange? Me thinks Im going to develop a diy chiller
actually, that sounds pretty good to me. i've been thinking about improving the heat exchange zone because the plastic tubing obviously sux ass (but i still get a significant temp drop). i'm thinking a better heat exchange rate (like the mediums you're suggesting) would allow this to function on a much larger system.

 

the anonized aluminum sounds best but how to get a block, machine it out, and diy it sounds daunting to me. maybe easy for nanotuners and you but putting hooks and a mounting bracket up for my mh fixture is the extent of my diy abilities. :(

 

the condensating glass/coiled tubed glass sounds interesting too. i hadn't thought of that, even though i have access to lab catalogs and equipment (i have a testing lab on-site here). that sounds doable, just a question of expense though. one of the reasons for the cooler project was trying to avoid chiller-level expenditures.

 

...

 

...ah, it's reefing. it's automatically a money pit. :P

 

will advise on upgrade. planning a bunch of big reef projects soon anyways, what's another little one? :lol:

 

for the anonized aluminum imperfection-thing, maybe you could coat the inside with a marine paint/epoxy/whatever. does sound risky though (with the alum). hmmm...

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Oh the borosilicate was going to be a block, if you're talking about a coil condenser, i dont think those are water tight.

 

I also thought about the epoxy thing but Im afraid that with the small surface area im working with, even a thin layer of epoxy might bottle neck the heat transfer too much. I don't know, a 1mm coating might do the job, but I'll start another thread on a diy chiller to avoid derailing this one any further

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Pyrex is a different type of glass than boro--I know my glass. That, and my dad did glassblowing for scientific purposes like optics. He also tried to make his own chiller, and it proved to be difficult to do it efficiently. That was decades ago, though.

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Sure is. But we're still talking about soft glass vs. hard glass.

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bubblethumper

Ok, I'm planning to buy the JBJ chiller, but why hasn't anyone gone this route(?):

 

PC (as in home computer) Radiator:

pro120_2pass_black_800w.jpg

 

+ a 120mm fan

+ a small pump

 

Total cost would be less than $100 and would probably exceed the cooling capacity of the Iceprobe

 

Would be quiet too

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RayWhisperer

^^^ What's it made of? ^^^

I'm not sure, but I'd imagine the answer to that question would be the answer to why no one uses these.

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is that radiator sw safe? (what ray's suggesting)

 

there were some cpu tuners on here before (couple of years back) with water-cooled cpu's, water jackets, manifold, and stuff. that was really whack stuff imo. i was always hoping those guys would develop something for the nano-cooling market.

 

i've checked computer mod sites (e.g. coolerguys) but most of the stuff wasn't reef-safe, i.e. copper.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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