Lurker Posted August 5, 2007 Share Posted August 5, 2007 After spending all my pay check on getting some new equipment I was looking for a fast way (besides fans) to bring down my water temps in my 92g fish only tank (temp was at 83 and I wanted it to be at least 75-78). After reading a few threads on RC I decided to give mine a shot. My first plan was to stop by Walmart and Lowes! At walmart I picked up a mini fridge, they have a few from $70-$200, now mind you the small ones can work but you will be running them full blast the whole time. I ended up picking up this one as its got alot of room inside to work with. My next stop landed me at Lowes and picked up 40 feet of hose, this hose will be curled inside the fridge (the longer the hose the cooler the water passing through will get). So now I have the mini fridge and 40feet of hose and a pump (I don't know what kind but I used it as a return from a sump on a 30g). Take the mini fridge and drill 2 holes large enough to fite the hose (I put 1 hole entering into the freezer section and the other hole was on the side (bottom portion). Now it really doesn't matter where you put the holes that is a personal preferance. I then dropped my pump in the sump and ran all my hose from the pump through the fridge (i have 18 curls in the freezer section and the rest are in the fridge) and back out to the sump. Turn on the pump and make sure you don't have any kind of kinks in your hose, then turn your fridge on. It took me 2 days to get the temp to where I want, now my temps of my tank stay at 77 (with the fridge settings only on 5). This was my temp solution till my next paycheck, however with so many tanks in the house this lil mini chiller will be seeing alot of use. I'll try to post pics as soon as I get my camera back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomanero Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 That's a great idea. Love to see the pics. What type of hose did you use? What about using just a mini freezer? Man, you got me thinking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted August 6, 2007 Author Share Posted August 6, 2007 That's a great idea.Love to see the pics. What type of hose did you use? What about using just a mini freezer? Man, you got me thinking. The mini freezer would work great, however u don't want to freeze the water flowing through the hose. The hose I am picked up is very thin (think 3/4 in). I'll bug the girlfriend for the pics in the morning. In total I think I spent $120 on everthing, not bad for a temp/back up chiller. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bananags Posted September 8, 2007 Share Posted September 8, 2007 i am sure you still have some room left to keep fresh frozen fish food in the freezer compartment right? =) definitely better than just having a chiller Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Bmwaaron Posted September 8, 2007 Share Posted September 8, 2007 This would work fine for a FOWLR tank that doesn't use MH and has a pretty constant heat load, the problem with Reef tanks is that you would have a large temperature swing. When the lights are on you have a high heat load when they are off you have a low heat load. You would have to use something like a Reef keeper to turn a separate pump on when the temp reaches a preset value to help regulate the temp. Then you also run the possibility of icing up the hose when the pump is off. Cool idea but I don't know how well it would work for a tank with Metal Halides. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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