TRUE PICO CHILLER? but why not????

[shcrimps]

I’ll start this off by stating i have nearly no knowledge on chillers since i’ve never had the need, however with that being said
why aren’t there small chillers? and i mean like a regular heater you drop in a tank not some super complicated bulky piece of equipment??
(almost off topic not really) there’s a science museum near me that has what i believe are copper coils that get cold via electricity i presume? if thats the case how has nobody make this happen yet in a smaller form factor?
again im not by any means an expert i have zero knowledge on this stuff i just thought it would be cool for a super small jellyfish tank or something similar

 

[Peace River]

There are nano chillers available at 1/15 HP, but I haven't seen one for a pico. The potential temp swings with the small volume of water could be a concern with a pico chiller. Depending on the ambient temp, another option could be a 4" computer fan.

 

[shcrimps]

There are nano chillers available at 1/15 HP, but I haven't seen one for a pico. The potential temp swings with the small volume of water could be a concern with a pico chiller. Depending on the ambient temp, another option could be a 4" computer fan.

even those units are hefty and bulky and i know a computer fan/ fan in general could lower temp a bit (none of this even applies to me i wouldn’t keep any species that need such cold temps) but the way i imagined it is just same exact look as a regular heater that goes into the tank instead of a bulky exterior unit

so far this is all i have found that is seemingly less bulky and definitely smaller, not exactly how my imagination painted the picture but this is close enough and at a semi low enough price point to satisfy the need i currently don’t have for now

 

[LovinlifeinGuam]

I think its because the majority of them function similar to air conditioners which condense freon. When freon is pressurized, it gets cold.
I had a chiller for my 10 gallon (Hailea 28-A). The other thing is the pump that goes inside the tank to pump water through the chiller wpuld be an eyesore in a small tank for most people.

 

[Aaron Stone]

Nearly all mechanical cooling operates through the compression of a refrigerant which is then evaporated through a coil which provides the cooling (think of a can of compressed air getting cold when you use it). This requires a fair amount of machinery.

In more temperate climates people employee evaporative cooling using fans, taking advantage of the latent heat of evaporation. Super economical, but limited in cooling capacity. More effective in arid climates.

What you are looking for is a a peltier cooler. Which uses an electrical current to transfer heat from one side of the unit to the other. Effectively making one side cold one side hot. They are typically inefficient in comparison to the refrigeration cycle, and expensive.

 

[JoJosReef]

I've toyed around with the idea of coiling a massive length of dosing tubing inside of a refrigerator (maybe coiled around a thick lead pipe), and when the temp in the tank rises to 79F, it will start pumping water from the tank through the refrigerator slowly and back into the tank. I already have a minifridge under my tank pumping Reef Nutrition food into the tank 4x/day, so not a stretch to go with a larger unit to pump tank water through.

No idea if this would provide enough cooling, though.

 

[VintageReefer]

Pico “chiller” system on my 1g
And various corals I’ve kept in it
Has a speed control switch in behind the removable panel

 

[Aaron Stone]

It would have to be low flow. I like the idea of the lead pipe. Solid would work better. Provide more thermal mass. Dependent on the size of the aquarium and the size of the fridge it MIGHT work, but my gut says not. My first concern would be raising the temperature up inside the fridge and spoiling your food.

 

[shcrimps]

Pico “chiller” system on my 1g
And various corals I’ve kept in it
Has a speed control switch in behind the removable panel

that’s such an insane tank, love it!!!

 

[shcrimps]

I've toyed around with the idea of coiling a massive length of dosing tubing inside of a refrigerator (maybe coiled around a thick lead pipe), and when the temp in the tank rises to 79F, it will start pumping water from the tank through the refrigerator slowly and back into the tank. I already have a minifridge under my tank pumping Reef Nutrition food into the tank 4x/day, so not a stretch to go with a larger unit to pump tank water through.

No idea if this would provide enough cooling, though.

wait wait wait you’re using a dosing pump for liquid food or???????
i kinda like the idea but the thought of the food sitting in the tube for hours before getting put into the tank would stress me, maybe before not as much since i kept my room near temp of a fridge below 60 year round but now the tank is in the living room which doesn’t quite get that cold unless its night

 

[shcrimps]

Nearly all mechanical cooling operates through the compression of a refrigerant which is then evaporated through a coil which provides the cooling (think of a can of compressed air getting cold when you use it). This requires a fair amount of machinery.

In more temperate climates people employee evaporative cooling using fans, taking advantage of the latent heat of evaporation. Super economical, but limited in cooling capacity. More effective in arid climates.

What you are looking for is a a peltier cooler. Which uses an electrical current to transfer heat from one side of the unit to the other. Effectively making one side cold one side hot. They are typically inefficient in comparison to the refrigeration cycle, and expensive.

thank you for your input, you clearly know much more than i do and i appreciate it
half of the reason for this hobby for me is learning i like to learn new things

 

[Aaron Stone]

thank you for your input, you clearly know much more than i do and i appreciate it
half of the reason for this hobby for me is learning i like to learn new things

That's what I love about the hobby as well! I am a mechanical engineer, so your playing in my sandbox here, but the biology and chemistry is where I scratch my head! It always feels like I am learning and being taught something new, and I have been reefing for 20 years.

 

[JoJosReef]

It would have to be low flow. I like the idea of the lead pipe. Solid would work better. Provide more thermal mass. Dependent on the size of the aquarium and the size of the fridge it MIGHT work, but my gut says not. My first concern would be raising the temperature up inside the fridge and spoiling your food.

An excellent point. And I just checked. Even if you had 5 meters of 2mm ID tubing coiled up in the refrigerator, that is only 15.7mL of tank water sitting inside the fridge between temperature adjustments (and getting cold to 4C), so that isn't going to contribute much to cooling.

Perhaps if you had a 10gal reservoir in the fridge? Oddly, my calculations for volume of refrigerated saltwater to cycle into a tank with a total volume of 90gal (83 gal tank w/~70gal water + 29gal sump w/~20gal water) is approximately 2 gal, which seems like a lot of saltwater to cycle in. This, of course, does not factor in that the water leaving the tank will warm the water in the reservoir, so it won't be at 4C during the entire cycle, meaning it might be much more volume that has to be pumped into the tank...

I'm not sure how a regular chiller works, but seems like a massive input to drop a tank by a degree or two!

 

[Tamberav]

I’ll start this off by stating i have nearly no knowledge on chillers since i’ve never had the need, however with that being said
why aren’t there small chillers? and i mean like a regular heater you drop in a tank not some super complicated bulky piece of equipment??
(almost off topic not really) there’s a science museum near me that has what i believe are copper coils that get cold via electricity i presume? if thats the case how has nobody make this happen yet in a smaller form factor?
again im not by any means an expert i have zero knowledge on this stuff i just thought it would be cool for a super small jellyfish tank or something similar

There are small chillers. Two kinds I can think of off the top of my head.

One is an ice probe

The other is the Chill Solutions Nano Aquarium Chiller, though I don’t know if it is still being made.

 

[JoJosReef]

wait wait wait you’re using a dosing pump for liquid food or???????
i kinda like the idea but the thought of the food sitting in the tube for hours before getting put into the tank would stress me, maybe before not as much since i kept my room near temp of a fridge below 60 year round but now the tank is in the living room which doesn’t quite get that cold unless its night

Doser sitting inside of mini fridge. 2 dosing heads. One pumps the liquid food mixture out of a tube that I clean and refill once a week. 2nd dosing head is connected to a tub of RODI water (still inside the fridge). The "out" side of the 2nd dosing head tubing connects to the "out" side of the food dosing head tubing by a T barb. Dosing head 1 pushes about 4-5mL of food through the tubing past the T barb. Then dosing head 2 turns on and pumps 15mL of RODI through the tubing, effectively pushing the food that is past the T barb into the tank and flushing the tubing. The tubing goes out of the mini fridge via a hole drilled in the side of the mini fridge with the tubing going through it and resealed with silicone (same is happening for wires going into the fridge for the doser). Pumps go off 4 times a day, so the tubing is frequently flushed. Running for 2.5 years and so far I've seen zero fouling in the tubing and the liquid food is never non-refrigerated.

I've varied the Reef Nutrition mixture over time. I found Mysis Feast doesn't work at all with the 2mm inner diameter tubing--gets clogged up too often. I also found that ROE has variable effectivness. I've observed a lot of the eggs leaving the tube all broken up and hollow, so I think they are either crushed by the dosing head or (my suspicion) crushed by sheer pressure as they are forced through. Right now I have a mixture of 10mL PacPods + 10ml OysterFeast + 5mL PhytoFeast + 10mL RotiFeast. Wrasse dominant tank, so they love the PacPods going in, and the corals like the rest. I sometimes put ROE in as well, but lower volume (I used to use almost a third volume ROE, but now just 5-10mL added in).

I think I have a link to the setup in the first post of my Build Thread.

 

[Aaron Stone]

An excellent point. And I just checked. Even if you had 5 meters of 2mm ID tubing coiled up in the refrigerator, that is only 15.7mL of tank water sitting inside the fridge between temperature adjustments (and getting cold to 4C), so that isn't going to contribute much to cooling.

Perhaps if you had a 10gal reservoir in the fridge? Oddly, my calculations for volume of refrigerated saltwater to cycle into a tank with a total volume of 90gal (83 gal tank w/~70gal water + 29gal sump w/~20gal water) is approximately 2 gal, which seems like a lot of saltwater to cycle in. This, of course, does not factor in that the water leaving the tank will warm the water in the reservoir, so it won't be at 4C during the entire cycle, meaning it might be much more volume that has to be pumped into the tank...

I'm not sure how a regular chiller works, but seems like a massive input to drop a tank by a degree or two!

A typical chiller is going to operate for a longer period, ideally, to bring down the aquarium temp as opposed to providing a large bolus of high delta-T water, which could have adverse effects in the tank.

You want your temperature curve to be a steady rise followed by a steady drop. Not a cliff. I still think that the a solid steal pipe providing thermal mass with coil wrapped around it would be the way to go. Just don't know if your little fridge is up to the job.

Ultimately it really comes down to the delta-T between the tank and the surrounding environment. The tank is going to be gain X BTU/hr that needs to be rejected by your little refrigerator.

 

[JoJosReef]

A typical chiller is going to operate for a longer period, ideally, to bring down the aquarium temp as opposed to providing a large bolus of high delta-T water, which could have adverse effects in the tank.

You want your temperature curve to be a steady rise followed by a steady drop. Not a cliff. I still think that the a solid steal pipe providing thermal mass with coil wrapped around it would be the way to go. Just don't know if your little fridge is up to the job.

Ultimately it really comes down to the delta-T between the tank and the surrounding environment. The tank is going to be gain X but/hr that needs to be rejected by your little refrigerator.

Question then becomes, is this at all sensible, or more cost-effective just to buy any of the chillers on the market? Id probably need to upgrade from a mini to at least a half-size fridge. That's perhaps half the cost of a chiller already. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ worth a thought expt at least!

 

[Aaron Stone]

Question then becomes, is this at all sensible, or more cost-effective just to buy any of the chillers on the market? Id probably need to upgrade from a mini to at least a half-size fridge. That's perhaps half the cost of a chiller already. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ worth a thought expt at least!

Sensible or effective? Absolutely not!

But fun to think about it!

 

[Aaron Stone]

Doser sitting inside of mini fridge. 2 dosing heads. One pumps the liquid food mixture out of a tube that I clean and refill once a week. 2nd dosing head is connected to a tub of RODI water (still inside the fridge). The "out" side of the 2nd dosing head tubing connects to the "out" side of the food dosing head tubing by a T barb. Dosing head 1 pushes about 4-5mL of food through the tubing past the T barb. Then dosing head 2 turns on and pumps 15mL of RODI through the tubing, effectively pushing the food that is past the T barb into the tank and flushing the tubing. The tubing goes out of the mini fridge via a hole drilled in the side of the mini fridge with the tubing going through it and resealed with silicone (same is happening for wires going into the fridge for the doser). Pumps go off 4 times a day, so the tubing is frequently flushed. Running for 2.5 years and so far I've seen zero fouling in the tubing and the liquid food is never non-refrigerated.

I've varied the Reef Nutrition mixture over time. I found Mysis Feast doesn't work at all with the 2mm inner diameter tubing--gets clogged up too often. I also found that ROE has variable effectivness. I've observed a lot of the eggs leaving the tube all broken up and hollow, so I think they are either crushed by the dosing head or (my suspicion) crushed by sheer pressure as they are forced through. Right now I have a mixture of 10mL PacPods + 10ml OysterFeast + 5mL PhytoFeast + 10mL RotiFeast. Wrasse dominant tank, so they love the PacPods going in, and the corals like the rest. I sometimes put ROE in as well, but lower volume (I used to use almost a third volume ROE, but now just 5-10mL added in).

I think I have a link to the setup in the first post of my Build Thread.

I like this setup. I have run into it before, and might try it on my new tank. Thanks for the recipe!

 

[JoJosReef]

I like this setup. I have run into it before, and might try it on my new tank. Thanks for the recipe!

Note: I've been toying around with getting a doser with larger diameter tubing to see if I can get MysisFeast or thawed Mysis through without clogging. If you thaw and rinse frozen mysis and add it into a Reef Nutrition mixture it basically stays in suspension. There are a few dosers that use 3mm ID tubing, and then there are the non-aquarium Kamoer dosers that don't run on programs, but you'd need a good controller to make sure it pumps a small enough amount (i.e., just a few seconds) since the higher ID tubing pumps tend to be for pumping larger volumes faster.