Frozen Water in gravity feed cheap ATO

[Gaspipe]

Curious.. as a cheap chiller you...

Freeze some RODI water and twist it on this ATO.

Amazon ATO

The heat in the room will melt the water. As your tank needs more it will get more (ice cold water) in the sump/rear chamber where the return pump will immediately mix that water.

I'm thinking as a cheap chiller when I am on vacation. Can leave AC set to 80*. This might be better than a fan to an inkbird. The fan cools the tank but encourages more evaporation which needs more RODI water.

I just set up this cheap ATO for my weekend trip.

I might experiment with this idea when I am home. Have to become more familiar with this set-up as it is intended to work for now. I have no idea how long 1.5L will last currently. May have to insulate the bottle a bit. I assume the ice will melt in one day.

If anyone uses this and is very familiar with the performance, perhaps they would like to try.

 

[KrisReef]

I feed my fish frozen cubes and have never noticed any change in tank temperature as a result.

 

[elysics]

You are better off just freezing a filled bottle and putting the entire (closed) bottle in the tank.

Might need (much) more then one bottle per day though depending on how big the tank and how hot the air is

Meltwater ato isn't going to do anything cooling wise, just not enough heat capacity, if you have ac anyway I'd just set it so the temperature in the tank doesnt move, for me this is 75°F, but you could maybe go to 77 or 78 of you don't mind your tank getting slightly warmer than usual