Remember to maintain your chillers!

certain_code

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 1, 2014
Messages
412
Reaction score
135
Location
San Diego
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Just a little tip that I have never seen anyone mention on R2R before. A little background first..

It is still fairly warm right now in New England and my apartment gets pretty warm with the afternoon sun still. While at work, my ReefAngel warned me of an overheat flag. Odd, perhaps the temperature prob got knocked out of the sump. I took a look on my Nest and didnt notice anything wrong and the chiller temp read the same temperature as the controller at 85 degrees. When I got home I immediately checked and realized that there was no water coming out of the chiller return line into the sump.

Because my chiller is run view my return, which was pumping to the tank still, there must be a clog on the chiller lines. I disconnected the chiller (yay for unions eveywhere!) and ran some vinegar through it in the bathtub (yay city living!). A whole lot of mess came out of the small chiller PVC lines. I reverse flushed the chiller with vinegar for about an hour, and then used a bathroom sink snake to really scrape the inside of the PVC lines.

Once I hooked everything back up, I adjusted the ball valve on my return to slightly favor the chiller a bit more to get the temps back normal a bit faster.

Moral of the story? Don't just assume your chiller is set and forget. It needs a good cleaning at least one a year to stay efficient. I can only imagine how terrible it would have been if I was out of town for a few days.
 

dbl

It Takes Less Energy to be Nice
View Badges
Joined
Mar 13, 2014
Messages
15,945
Reaction score
90,195
Location
SW Florida
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Very good advice for sure. Thanks for sharing the suggestion.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 73 37.8%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 66 34.2%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 25 13.0%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 28 14.5%
  • Other.

    Votes: 1 0.5%
Back
Top