Chiller Question 1/3HP

[Daniel]

Has any on heard of Current - USA chillers I am looking at getting a Chiller for my 180 Here is the info on the one i was looking at.
http://current-usa.com/primechillertower.html
All so looking at trade wind.
Are the quite or noise?
Daniel

 

[Demo]

Daniel,

I can't comment on either chiller, I haven't tried or seen either in action, but I bought the following CL-650 last year:

http://www.myreefcreations.com/chillers.htm

I'm happy with it so far. It's behind my chair in the living room and although it's loud enough that I know when it's running, it's not so loud that I can't stand it. I have no problem watchin TV with it's intermitent running. The Icecap fans on my hood are probably more of a disturbance. Let us know what you go with and how you like it.

Rob

 

[Daniel]

How much heat dose it put out?

 

[Daniel]

I was hoping that if I put a chiller on my tank that it will help make my room feel better in the summer. My family room gets very warm in the warmer months from the heat off my tank. The Temp in my tank was 91* yesterday. My house dose have cental air. The rest of my house is cool but my family room is not. I think if I can bring down the temp of the tank it should help with the room temp.
If my tank is 90* like today and I would like it to be 78* that is a pull down of 12* and once the tank temp is down the chiller should not have to work as hard and run as long. So hopefully the room temp should come down?
I do not have any other means to place it or vent it out of the room.
Any more info would be great. before I buy.
Thank you,
Daniel

 

[danthemanj]

Daniel,

A chiller will bring down the temperature of your tank but it will do little or nothing to bring down the tempoerature of your room if the heat in the room is due to your tank lights. In addition, if you place the chiller (especially one that can suffice for a 180 gallon tank) in the same room, it will put out a lot of heat which will make the room hot and end up heating the tank. I'm shocked that your tank is 91 degrees. Have you lost any livestock? You can fill some soda bottles with water and freeze it in your freezer and use those to cool you tank in addition to running several fans both on the water surface and between teh lights and the tank to help with the heat. I would think you would need at least a 1/2 HP chiller for your needs. With chillers if you need a 1/3 HP, you should the next bigger size so that it doesn't run all the time. The Current USA chillers are OK chillers. The Tradewind chiller are definetly better and have a better reputation for quality. Both those chillers look very boxy though, not something you would want to display. I would suggest instead getting a Pacific Coast 1/2 HP or an Oceanic Chiller. You could possibly buy the Pacific Coast Chiller in the PA Group Buy and get 15% off in addition to not paying any shipping for it (confirm with Blange...)

 

[Daniel]

Do you think once the tank temp comes down. The chiller will not have to run as long and the room temp should come down all so?

 

[sinkingbeach]

90 What kind of heat extraction are you using currently??? Is you thermometer correct. Do you have a ACJR, mine is set up to turn different lights off when hitting certain temps(83 and all lights are off). How long is your light cycle? My chiller comes on very late in the day if at all, and it's small for my tank size 1/10 for 175g but I'm also using a fan on my sump and this time of year my windows are open won't turn on the AC till it hits 88 outside, unless that is my wife says differently :-[

 

[Daniel]

My Thermometer is correct. I do not have a ACJR I do not know what that is. My lights are on for about 9hr. When we turn on the AC my water temp will hold a bout 84* to 86*. I do not have a fan on my sump.

Thanks to all for the info more I get the better I will be.

 

[Phyl]

The fan on your sump will do wonders for the tank temp, but if your house is already humid, I'm not sure it will help so much as the fan relies on evap to cool the water. We used a 1/4 chiller on our 120 tank for a summer it worked well enough to keep the temp down, but I'm not sure what affect that would have on room temp. I also would imagine it ran pretty hard when it ran since it was undersized for the application.

 

[Daniel]

The fan on your sump will do wonders for the tank temp, but if your house is already humid, I'm not sure it will help so much as the fan relies on evap to cool the water. We used a 1/4 chiller on our 120 tank for a summer it worked well enough to keep the temp down, but I'm not sure what affect that would have on room temp. I also would imagine it ran pretty hard when it ran since it was undersized for the application.

If I put a fan on my sump am I blowing across the sump top or just at it. My sump is under my stand. My room gets a very little humidity on the hot days when the AC is not on. But when the AC is on the humidity is not too bad. Today the temp is down and the tank is at 80*. My room temp is not bad today 72* with humidity is at 44%. In the cooler weather my room feels like the other rooms in my house with Humidity about 25/35%. I know what my Humidity because my thermostat has a humidity reading on it.
On chiller size I should be going with a 1/4hp but I am stepping up to 1/3hp on my 180 so it can cool faster and not run as long.
All so do they make fans just for sumps?

 

[Phyl]

... We used a 1/4 chiller ...

Ok, I think it was actually a 1/10.

 

[Phyl]

For the fan placement it needs to blow at the water to have the greatest effect. All the better if you're hitting a turbulent area of the sump (but then you might want to watch the stuff around the airpath for salt creep).

 

[Daniel]

Thanks I will try that first before I buy a chiller. It will be nice to save some money ;D

 

[Hawkeye]

What kind of pumps/lights are you running? Something to consider would be finding more efficient pumps/lights. They will be more expensive -but may help out in your temp fluctuations.

Keep in mind the fans will help but also increase the rate of evaporation.

 

[Daniel]

I have a Blueline 55HD pump for my skimmer. My return pump is a Gen-X PCX40. My lights are in a hood with a 4" fan, 3-175 watts M/H with 2-72" VHO bulbs.

 

[reneeRN]

The worst thing you can do is put your chiller in the house where the living space is. It is like putting your air conditioner unit indoors. It puts off a lot of heat. I have mine outside, but mine is as big as a central air unit. 2 hp This is the first year without turning it on. But then again, i disconnected the greenhouse tanks. That was a hot place. I hooked up my new vortech and put fans on my tanks, blowing across top of the tanks, longways. My temp max this year has been 79 so far. I have 4 250mh on, and 8 48" t5's as well as 5 96watt pc's. so far so good without a chiller.

 

[Daniel]

Thanks reneeRN that makes me feel like there is still hope.

 

[reneeRN]

By the way, Daniel, if you are using power heads, whatever wattage each powerhead is, it is like having that watt heater on in the tank. so if you have a 28 watt power head going, that is like a 28 watt heater on heating the tank. if you have 4 of them, multiply it. so, maximise your flow with the best pump you can afford, like a tunze uses some rediculous 18 watts giving something like 3000 million gallons per second flow. I cant recall the exact specs, but it is something magical like that. Plus, the more heat you have the more flow your corals need. Consider a closed loop, with an external pump for flow.

 

[reneeRN]

Wait a second, 90 degrees???? I find that difficult to believe. The only way that is happening is one of your heaters is remaining on. I had that happen to me before. UNPLUG ALL HEATERS and see if it is true. I finally bought a watt tester to see if my heaters were staying on, they were. two of them.

 

[Daniel]

My tank was 90* about week ago.
I have four Maxi-jet 900 8.5 watts at 230gph for powerheads on a wavemaker.
I do not have any heaters in this tank.
I just lifted my lighting hood 1" higher and now it is 3.5" off the water. My hood used to sit flush on top of the tank rim and now it is 1.5" off the rim. When I lifted off the rim you can feel the heat coming out towards me.
I have been thinking of a closed loop system but would need some good info for best set up. I have a new Blueline 30HD pressure rated pump 90watt 590gph that I am not using that I can use for it.
Daniel