Review: Nano Chiller, Pacific Coast CL-85

[NanoReefer53]

My first post in a long long long time.

 

 

I recently set back up my 12g NanoCube from last year and remebered the heat problems I had so I decided to pick up a chiller. Last year with stock lighting, the heat would go up to 84 with the lights on which was bad enough. During the summer, since my room is up stairs, it would heat up to high 80's since that's what the room temperature was with no AC.

 

Now, I also put on a 150w Aqualight which brings up the temperature considerably. Added with the summer heat, the temperature would go up to 87 when I did a test run 4 weeks ago. I purchased the chiller from www.aquatictech.com since they have a very good price on these ($156.99) plus great shipping rates. I recieved it in 3 days from Ohio to California. Upon first opening the package, the chiller was a very nice size (8.425x10x7). I could set it beside the tank, which is my bedroom, and not have it look like a big massive eye sore cooling unit. I set up very crude plumbing with vinyl lines, schedule40 fittings, loc-line, etc. The only pump I had available was a MJ1200 so I had that pushing water from the tank, into the chiller, and back up into the tank. So that was a total of 4 feet down, 4 feet up, and many turns here and there. With the little flow rate, I was afraid the chiller would not be effective since the recommended flow rate was 50gph minimum. Suprisingly, it has done very well with the temperature staying at 80-82 even though ambient temperature reached as high as 90 with 150w MH on for hours. I ordered an Eheim 1048 which is rated at 158gph so I'm guessing the cooling power will be a lot more effective once I get it set up. I really love this thing because it takes out the worry of my tank overheating without putting too many loud fans over the tank and massive evaporation.

 

My only complaint, the fan noise. Since this is a peltier chiller, it transfers the heat from the water to a massive heat sink and then gets dissapated by a large 120x38mm fan. It's also used as a heater so the fan turns on for both operations. In the middle of the night, it would click on and it sounded like a jet ready for take off, so that got pretty annoying. To fix that, I just replace the fan. I picked up a super quiet fan rated at 21dba from www.svc.com which is local to me and has awesome prices. The fan inside the chiller was a 24v and the one I bought was 12v so I had to install a voltage regulator in between the wiring and do some crazy zip tie riggin since it's not a standard fan (http://svc.com/acf12.html). Now, the chiller is no louder than a stock 12g nanocube so I am very happy with it.

 

In summary:

- Effective for 12g NanoCube w/ high 80's ambient temperature & 150w MH

- Noisy fan but fixable

- Relatively great price

[The Propagator]

Just dont use it on anything larger than a 15g tank.

Regaurdless of what they claim it will NOT chill a tank up to 29 gallons.

[chrisstankevitz]

Can you post a few pics of your setup? Thanks!

[reef krazy]

Any other reviews from other people?

[wmo168]

Piece of crap,... doesn't chill anything.. even an 8 gallon.

 

Get a Compressor base chiller like JBJ Nano for $100 more.. save you a lot of pain.. the CL85 I had keep running and it end up heating the tank more...