Easy Emergency Chiller for A/C Failure!

[Wirat]

Hey guys. Living in Florida in the middle of summer, I am reliant on my A/C keeping the temperature in my home low enough so my tank does not over heat. I recently had an A/C failure that didn't get fixed for nearly 48 hours. I just wanted to share what I did to ensure that everything in my tank survived without the use of a super expensive chiller.

You will need:
5+ feet of airline tubing. (helps to have more but you can get by with this).
A water pump you are able to attach the tubing to.
Bucket
Ice

Directions
1) Attach the airline tubing to the powerhead/pump and ensure water is able to be pumped through it.
2) Place the other end of the tube somewhere in your tank and clip it to the glass/rim.
3) Fill your bucket with tap water and place a few pounds of ice in it.
4) Take the extra tubing that is hanging outside of your tank and place it in the bucket of water.
5) Turn the pump on.



The water will be pumped from your tank, and when it travels through the hose that is sitting in the ice water it will cool off and return to your tank much colder than before. Monitor your tempature to make sure it does not drop too quickly causing stress on corals and other life. If your temperature is becoming too low, you can either remove some ice from the bucket or take some of the excess tubing out of the bucket. If it is still too hot, try to add more ice and some table salt to the water to make it colder.


This follows the exact same concept of a chiller, but is practically free and only to be used in a pinch! I hope this helps someone from a destroyed tank! Best of luck.

You can see here the water is pumped out of the tank, through the ice bath, and back in. With a 40 gallon display and 20 gallon sump, this kept my tank at a constant 78 degrees over 48 hours as my house was well above 85 degrees.

 

[Wirat]

Or you could be basic and just float some bags of ice in there... but who wants to be boring.

 

[pelphrey]

Sometimes you just have to be creative!!

 

[mta_morrow]

Hey guys. Living in Florida in the middle of summer, I am reliant on my A/C keeping the temperature in my home low enough so my tank does not over heat. I recently had an A/C failure that didn't get fixed for nearly 48 hours. I just wanted to share what I did to ensure that everything in my tank survived without the use of a super expensive chiller.

You will need:
5+ feet of airline tubing. (helps to have more but you can get by with this).
A water pump you are able to attach the tubing to.
Bucket
Ice

Directions
1) Attach the airline tubing to the powerhead/pump and ensure water is able to be pumped through it.
2) Place the other end of the tube somewhere in your tank and clip it to the glass/rim.
3) Fill your bucket with tap water and place a few pounds of ice in it.
4) Take the extra tubing that is hanging outside of your tank and place it in the bucket of water.
5) Turn the pump on.



The water will be pumped from your tank, and when it travels through the hose that is sitting in the ice water it will cool off and return to your tank much colder than before. Monitor your tempature to make sure it does not drop too quickly causing stress on corals and other life. If your temperature is becoming too low, you can either remove some ice from the bucket or take some of the excess tubing out of the bucket. If it is still too hot, try to add more ice and some table salt to the water to make it colder.


This follows the exact same concept of a chiller, but is practically free and only to be used in a pinch! I hope this helps someone from a destroyed tank! Best of luck.

You can see here the water is pumped out of the tank, through the ice bath, and back in. With a 40 gallon display and 20 gallon sump, this kept my tank at a constant 78 degrees over 48 hours as my house was well above 85 degrees.

Now cool thinking like that is what it’s all about [emoji41]

Great job and thanks for sharing!

 

[OMGitsManBearPig]

I agree with Matthew’s bag of ice comment.
You are going to pick up a lot of heat from the room moving water through a long line.
I don’t think this is more viable than bag-o’-ice-in-the-tank method. Direct heat transfer without the middle man (tubing), and depending on how full you fill the bag, much more surface area of the ice directly contacting the water. And, as heat rises, you’d be effecting the warmest area directly, as well.

Novel idea - and potentially convenient if you have multiple large bauckets to keep them filled - but I’d personally go sealed bags of ice over this method for the purposes of maintaining a temperature.

 

[Fin]

I used to keep frozen bottles of water in the freezer just for this occasion. When it got too hot, just pull a water bottle out of the freezer and drop it in the sump.

 

[Wirat]

I agree with Matthew’s bag of ice comment.
You are going to pick up a lot of heat from the room moving water through a long line.
I don’t think this is more viable than bag-o’-ice-in-the-tank method. Direct heat transfer without the middle man (tubing), and depending on how full you fill the bag, much more surface area of the ice directly contacting the water. And, as heat rises, you’d be effecting the warmest area directly, as well.

Novel idea - and potentially convenient if you have multiple large bauckets to keep them filled - but I’d personally go sealed bags of ice over this method for the purposes of maintaining a temperature.

Well matthew used both ideas but did the more complex one because I didnt have to change as frequently using the bucket method. Obviously the easier and less complicated method is to throw bags of ice in your tank, but as i said... who wants to be boring.

 

[DHill6]

I also used Frozen water bottles, needless to say you need to stay awake to keep switching them out.

 

[OMGitsManBearPig]

I suppose my comments came across more negative than intended.
As you say, who wants to be boring!

Cheers