Chiller

[Alesolra]

For a few dollars you can lower the temperature 83-77

 

[Windy]

This same idea has been tried thousands of times on these fish boards. It will not last, as that frige was not designed to run full time. Also the cooling capacity is very small. Might do all right with a 20 gal or so until it burns out.

 

[Alesolra]

in my case it maintains a 250-gallon tank and is heard when the refrigerator
turns off and after a while turns on so it it not works full time

 

[dewboy1127]

Just curious why not just run an actual chiller

 

[twilliard]

Just curious why not just run an actual chiller

Cost and reliability with todays chillers

 

[kv69]

"For a few dollars you can lower the temperature 83-77. "

And have some chilled adult bevs close to the tank as well...

 

[Alesolra]

Chiller 300 watts refrigerator 80 watts

 

[AZDesertRat]

The dorm fridge has been tried and dismissed thousands of times on all the forums. The compressor is not built for that kind of duty cycle and will fail quickly. The other big issue is plastic tubing is a horrible conductor of heat and cold so the heat transfer between the fridge and the tank water is minimal. If you were to use stainess steel or titanium tubing it would be thousands of times more efficient. Looks like you are pretty new at this but you can find hundreds of threads on every popular reef forum where others have tried this same thing over the ast 25 years or so and none is successful long term.

 

[Tori]

I'm surprised this method isn't used more for nano and even pico sized tanks. I haven't seen many good options out there for the smaller tanks. I'll probably try something like this with a mini fridge for my 20 g. I'm constrained by a 13 x 13 inch cabinet and haven't found a conventional chiller that will fit.

 

[Alesolra]

my tank is 250 gallons and using the mini refrigerator in and level 3 of the 7 achieves maximum power to keep the temperature at 76

 

[Tori]

my tank is 250 gallons and using the mini refrigerator in and level 3 of the 7 achieves maximum power to keep the temperature at 76

That seems pretty good. What is the room temperature ?

 

[AZDesertRat]

You don't see many because they don't work.
Research the term BTU and note how many BTU's are required to change the temperature of one gallon of water even 1 degree under perfect conditions. It takes a lot of energy to do so and small fridges are not efficient when you are circulating water through them, heck look how long it takes to cool down a 12 oz bottle of soda or beer once you place it in there or you open the door for awhile and note how long it takes to recover. It is not designed for this purpose. Read the hundreds of threads from the past.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

You don't see many because they don't work.
Research the term BTU and note how many BTU's are required to change the temperature of one gallon of water even 1 degree under perfect conditions. It takes a lot of energy to do so and small fridges are not efficient when you are circulating water through them, heck look how long it takes to cool down a 12 oz bottle of soda or beer once you place it in there or you open the door for awhile and note how long it takes to recover. It is not designed for this purpose. Read the hundreds of threads from the past.

Agreed.

 

[Alesolra]

That seems pretty good. What is the room temperature ?

the aquarium is in the living room of the house and live in a tropical country.

 

[Alesolra]

You don't see many because they don't work.
Research the term BTU and note how many BTU's are required to change the temperature of one gallon of water even 1 degree under perfect conditions. It takes a lot of energy to do so and small fridges are not efficient when you are circulating water through them, heck look how long it takes to cool down a 12 oz bottle of soda or beer once you place it in there or you open the door for awhile and note how long it takes to recover. It is not designed for this purpose. Read the hundreds of threads from the past.

It makes perfect sense what you say and if he wanted to get to freeze the fish tank assure you not serve but that is not the idea is just to cool the water to have a decent temperature. It works like refrigerators that give cold water to drink. It's just that cold water unfrozen

 

[twilliard]

Who remembers the aquanetics chillers?
Its a tank and running strong since 1996

 

[AZDesertRat]

If it were only that easy. As I said before, look up the phrase BTU and see what I am talking about. Then do a search on any reef forum for dorm refrigerator chiller and read about the hundreds and hundreds of attempts and failures. Chiller manufacturers would be out of business if it was that simple.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Honestly, do the search. There's tonnes of info. We can't link to forums on here, but here's a non-forum link that explains a few things. DIY Chiller The last paragraph is particularily interesting.

I know they were trying these in 1996......

 

[twilliard]

Here it is! I got it 80 bucks shipped!
Old and dusty but still alive

 

[dewboy1127]

How much would you say it cost extra a month on the electric bill?@twilliard