Running a fridge as a chiller?

[pomme]

Running a fridge as a chiller?

Ive been thinking of the summer months and the heat on the tank.

just speaking out loud here guys but i have just had a thought, how about having a air pump running in a fridge and then pumping the air from the fridge into the sump where it would cool the water. but be controller by a probe and monitor in the water?

i know it sounds stupid but if it works a tiny bit ans stops the tank water changing to much over the few hot days in the summer then brilliant :)

Andrew

[Condiman]

I have seen this done. It seems to work quite well actually. The one that I had seen was when the person had placed a small minifridge next to his tank to store his refrigerated foods. All he did was take some tubing from the tank that was fed by a small pump and took that tubing and fed it thew the sidewall of the fridge and back out again to the tank. Kind of a dual purpose fridgerator.

[pomme]

humm interesting i was thinking of using a old 25 litre salt bucket full of water and then get some of the bendy eheim piping and attach to a pump, which will be connectedto a probe to test the water temp. and the pipe will go in one side of the fridge and the coil downwards in the bucket and out again. i was thinking of using a old saltbucket and water becuase temperature converts better in water then air.

does that sound okay?

[Condiman]

sounds doable but it may take some tweeking tho. Let me know how it works out.

[leaffish75]

It would work But you need a very slow flow rate inorder to cool the water off. I know some people who have done it in the minis but it takes a bit to cool off the water. I have heard of a guy using to cooling parts off a water fountin to. Go to this site they have lots of DIY info on everything
http://www.kingvinnie.com/aquaria/diy/
It has everything from chillers to lighting and more.

leaf
:hmm2:

[pomme]

cool thanx for the link :)

yeah i was thinking of a flow of around 500l/h?

[SaltyDawg]

I have seen some DIY's out there that use the mini-fridge. The one that looked the best was where a guy put a 5 gallon bucket inside full of water, then he wound tubing through this water and connected it to connectors at the top of the fridge. From there he used tubing to run from a pump in his sump to one of the connectors on the fridge, the other connector was the outlet which he ran up into the tank. He used a small RIO pump to circulate the water from the sump into the fridge and back out.
The tubing in the bucket surrounded by water gave the best conductivity and chilled the water faster than just running your tubing straight through the fridge. The fridge has a tendancy to turn on an off depending on the temp inside and this can vary by as much as 10 degrees while the water will not vary much in temp at all. He also used a small rio pump in the bucket just to keep the water circulating and not get hotspots in the bucket.

One last thing he did was set up a circuit to turn the pump in his sump off when the water in his tank reached a preset temp. This circuit only let the water temp vary by no more than 2 degrees.
Wayne

[Condiman]

That sounds even better yet

[icereefer]

I know a guy back home in calif that did it the same way as wayne posted only a little different, He used a 3 gal pail of Isopropyl Alcohol and put it in the fridge and got a heavy glass spin tube, with riser tubes that stuck up out of the pail,he runs a mini maxi-jet in his sump and pushed water threw a 1/4" cpvc pipe to his glass spin tube and ran 1/4" cpvc pipe from the other end of the spin pipe to a valve to control flow rate back into the sump.
he went with the Isopropyl Alcohol because it cooled the water faster.total cost was about $75 that's because the glass spin tube was around 55 bucks the rest he had lying around the house, but he's been cooling his custom made 250 gal tank for about 3 years now that way.
myself would be ascard if something ever happened to that glass spin tube, Alcohol in the tank would not be a good thing :(

[pomme]

yeah not sure if i should do what wayne said or to just buy a chiller, i do have a old fridge lying around so it does seem a good idea, and as we over the pond dont get that many hot days in summer may be the best way to do it.

[leaffish75]

get one off ebay. its cheaper that way

[pomme]

yeah being scouting ebay for a few months now. the english one and german but they dont seem to come up much over here.

[Macbeth417]

I too and considering this. As I have minifridge with beer and fish foods in my fish room behind my tank. If I do go ahead with it I wil be sure to take some pics. My only concern was getting a coil, to place in a tub, that will transfer heat well enough. I really like the idea of the glass coil and If I can find one for a reasonable price I may give it a try. Just attatch a pump to a Ranco controller and run some 1/2" tubing to a coil inside the fridge with some gromets around where tube enters and exits the frige, run it back out into tank. Seem like it would work to me.

-Erik

[icereefer]

if you go with the glass tube use pyrex glass, I think that's how you spell it ?,I have a guy at the collage here that's looking into it for me and he can make them hopefully?

[Macbeth417]

Icereefer:

Any updates? I looked into glass coils and so far the cost of an appropriate coil would be far too much for the DIY project to be cost effective. Let me know what you find.

-Erik

[Taxman]

I would test it first before hooking it all up. I have heard and seen a lot of people do this same thing with a fridge and it really doesnt work very well. Not to rain on a parade, but the little fridges dont have enough BTU's to keep up with the demands from the tank. You would have to circulate the water VERY slowly to even get a couple degree drop. Put a gallon of water in the fridge that is 80 degrees and see how long it takes to drop the temp 2 degrees. You have to remember that the water going through your bucket of water in the fridge is going to heat the water in the bucket. This you will all know. But can the fridge keep up with the bucket temp? I have heard a lot of people try this and they toss it out quickly because it can not keep up.

But most people really only need the chilling during the day when the lights are on. Like me. So heres an idea. Remove the freezer door in the small fridge. This will allow the fridge to cool the bucket temp even farther over night when the chiller is not needed. Use a temp sensor to control a pump to supply the water to the fridge. This way it only runs when needed. So it may actually work. And low flow of course.

Just a little input.

[jman785]

The only way this works, is on smaller tanks. Its not efficient on big tanks, as the fridge would always be running.

[jman785]

But if you are going to run a line with tank water, through the fridge, your going to want to have as much tubing/piping in the fridge as you can get with tank water, so coils and coils would be better than just straight in and out...that way it gets better exposure.