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Using car radiator as cooler

Progen

Member
Joined
25 Dec 2016
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394
Location
Malaysia
I'm in the tropics and my tank is in the bedroom of a two storey house so it gets a bit warm but I like having the tank right next to my bed so moving it downstairs is out of the question.

On most days, temperature is somewhere in between 29 - 31 and that's on the high side. Now it's not exactly death dealing high and I really can't afford to get a chiller for my 4' tank so I was wondering whether it's possible to pipe the water from my canister's output through an (new of course) aluminium car radiator and have a fan blow on it. I should be able to get 2 - 3 degrees of cooling, right? I've read on a few sites that as long as pH stays above 5, the aluminium won't leach anything toxic into the water passing through. Are there any other dangers which might pop up?

ps. I've seen nice stainless steel room radiators in the U.K. but it's kind of impractical to order them into Malaysia because the moment Customs sees so much metal, there'll be a hefty tax on it regardless of what its final purpose is to be.
 
Wont work in fact you will end up heating the tank water even quicker by putting it through a radiator. If however you ran water across the radiator and blew a fan that would work, but probably not much better than just fitting a fan to top if the tank.
 
That will not help much because the best that method can do is just lower the water temp down to room temp.

On the other hand placing a cooling fan(s) above the tank water can make the water cooler than the room temp by evaporation effect.
 
Oh, I thought that having a fan blow through the fins of the radiator would bring it slightly lower than room temperature?
 
Oh, I thought that having a fan blow through the fins of the radiator would bring it slightly lower than room temperature?

No because there is no evaporation. Evaporation is required to get lower temp than the room temp.
 
cheapest head-start way to cool your tank is to get a used mini fridge ,mod drill two holes, run a coil pipe thru it , in and out into the tank , for small volume tank peltier cooling is used
 
mini fridge

Haha awsome idea, never thought of it..:clap: Thanks for sharing.. Did watch a review video of this one
9200000050790846_1.jpg

They perform realy well, with an average of 8°C on hot days.. 50 watt 220 VAC and 12 VDC.. It actualy can also heat up to 40°C with a switch on the back side.. 14 litre volume.. And actualy not very expensive..
:thumbup:

This one is even smaller..
 
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cheapest head-start way to cool your tank is to get a used mini fridge ,mod drill two holes, run a coil pipe thru it , in and out into the tank , for small volume tank peltier cooling is used

I've heard much about using mini fridges. But there is also some info against using it to cool an aquarium. Their reason is a fridge is designed to cool a sealed area. When you close the door, much of the heat from outside can't affect the inside of the fridge. This way the compressor can be small and doesn't consume much power. But if you use it with an aquarium, the compressor will be running non-stop and will fail soon.

http://www.beananimal.com/articles/dorm-fridge-aquarium-chiller.aspx

I've not tried it myself but I think it makes sense.

For the peltier cooler, I've an impression that a 4-ft tank is too big for it to work.
 
Looking at this from a different point of view.
When I was a child we had terracotta milk coolers.
The milk was placed in a saucer / pot of water with a terracotta dome over the top, The water from the saucer would soak into the terracotta & evaporate thus cooling the interior where the milk was....... Now could this not be possible run a pipe in the interior of the terracotta dome with aquarium water passing through it instead of the milk bottle?
Perhaps get a dome made or find a porous pipe to do the job.

Oh well! .... just a thought!:) But no running costs if you already have a filter running.
 
At low pH, aluminium may cause issues with livestock. I would avoid aluminium at all costs. Stainless steel or go home. :)
Quite right, your best bet here is a Lager or beer cooler, the kind used in the basements of pubs. Get a second-hand one. Cooling is secondary, in an "ice bank" where you can use a powerhead to pump tank water through the stainless, food grade coil. Throughput will be slow, but hey, more dwell= more heat exchange! I used these for keeping native marines cool without issue except that they do generate a bit of heat themselves.

Check out cheap peltier coolers
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Mini-Fis...hash=item2a72410287:m:mbkSNROMMt7tc1rPTaeLI9A
 
Why not just counteract the effects of high temperatures by increasing oxygenation with a few airstones? Fish are pretty adaptable.
 
I've heard much about using mini fridges. But there is also some info against using it to cool an aquarium. Their reason is a fridge is designed to cool a sealed area. When you close the door, much of the heat from outside can't affect the inside of the fridge. This way the compressor can be small and doesn't consume much power. But if you use it with an aquarium, the compressor will be running non-stop and will fail soon.

http://www.beananimal.com/articles/dorm-fridge-aquarium-chiller.aspx

I've not tried it myself but I think it makes sense.

For the peltier cooler, I've an impression that a 4-ft tank is too big for it to work.

yes , already mention peltier cooling is for small volume tank ?

not sure seen a few diy like this , for those who cant afford to buy a chiller ? besides fan evaporating cooling , nothing much in the market works as well as a aquarium chiller
 

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Why not just counteract the effects of high temperatures by increasing oxygenation with a few airstones? Fish are pretty adaptable.

Not likely to do much in my situation. I already have quite a bit of evaporation going on through vigorous surface agitation. My spray bar is made up of 4 pieces and comes up to about slightly more than 2'. It's about an inch below the water surface and is angled towards the surface so that the plants at substrate level are swaying about gently.

I suppose I could go modify a table fan so that it rotates at a slow speed and mount it above the tank or does someone have any better ideas? To be frank, I'm a tight-fisted bugger when it comes to electricity guzzling appliances so it's actually not the cost of the chiller which bugs me. :D
 
Evaporation of your tank water won't cool it, just drop your water level.
you require evaporation of a different liquid that will cool a chamber. i.e. a fridge
 
Evaporation of your tank water won't cool it, just drop your water level.
you require evaporation of a different liquid that will cool a chamber. i.e. a fridge

It does cool the tank water down, in my experience. 28.5°C in 32°C room with lights on for a 340l tank is possible (with 5 litres of evaporation a day).
Someone may do a bit better than this but I think this is near the limit for fans-on-tank method.
 
I suppose I could go modify a table fan so that it rotates at a slow speed and mount it above the tank or does someone have any better ideas?

That sounds good because small fans are very noisy. Just make sure it doesn't drop into the tank.
 
Many people have made quite effective tank coolers by mounting a load of PC fans into the hood of their tanks. If you run large diameter 12V fans on +5V, they run almost silently and can easily lower the water the water temperature a couple of degrees.

One particular summer, here in UK, when it was once hot, I lowered my tank temp from 32'C odd to about 26'C by just attaching a clip on fan (about 15cm diameter) to tank edge.
 
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