TRUE PICO CHILLER? but why not????

[JoJosReef]

Link to feeding explanation:
Post in thread 'Simplicity Dosing (4-Head); any reviews?'
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/simplicity-dosing-4-head-any-reviews.992671/post-11757257

 

[shcrimps]

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.

as much as i love the idea of this because automation is cool
i know i would forget to clean it out weekly here and there
just yesterday i picked up a new (to me) doser from a local so i can switch back to two part dosing since AFR hasn’t yielded the best results on this current tank and i’ll still have an extra two channels, can’t say i’ll do the full liquid food per say but at least doing phyto/ or AB+ would be cool IMO
more so on phyto though, i like the process of feeding so i can see everyone come out from their little spots & same with AB+ i just like watching how it glows and also how corals interact with it
but i definitely am going to get back into dosing phyto religiously again
my biodiversity was so much better with it
i use liquid foods for all my filter feeders which helps supplement but live phyto just kicks it up immensely (not entirely related to the chiller) but i ordered a small “jellyfish” tank and since its acrylic i plan on drilling to connect to a 2 1/2g tank as a little sump for extra water volume
in hopes to have a nice little pod culture/ mysis culture if im lucky enough

 

[BeanAnimal]

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.

It depends on the capacity of the fridge and the volume of the system. The math is pretty straight forward.

Size - phase change devices are efficient and are relatively large due to the compressor and coils. Peltier devices (TECs) can be made very small, But are wildly inefficient. Easily 10x or more less efficient than a comparable phase change device.


See my site for the math on dorm fridge chillers if you want to take a stab at the calculations. They can work for pico or nano tanks in some cases.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Btw the size and technology explanation was for the OP. I am sure you already know that part JoJo