Who here uses a chiller on their tanks?

I was just curious how many of you here use a chiller on your FW native tanks?

I was just curious how many of you here use a chiller on your FW native tanks?

I wish I had one but they are too expensive.

If I did have one it'd increase summer survival and the range of species I could keep.

I did some bad math one time and discovered that your tap water can be used as a chiller. I used the continuous water flow system from http://www.aquaticpl...nge-system.html and just did a mass balance on chlorine. There's more exiting the tank by evaporation than there is entering the tank through the cold water line, so the chlorine will not accumulate. The same is true for chloramine. But I ran into some trouble with derivatives and evaporation rates, so I'm not sure if the math is right or not. The people who instead of doing theoretical math work just go ahead and set up the automatic water change, they say that their fish are fine.

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Yeah... I'm not very good at math. I probably should have solved for the necessary partial pressure instead of the necessary volume (the volume is a lot less intuitive). But basically, because the required volume was less than the volume of the tank, I think it means the chlorine doesn't accumulate to a hazardous concentration. You can have basically full tap water flow rate into the tank and overflow out, and the chlorine still degasses faster than it accumulates. I think. Again, not so good at math here.

The fish I keep (Elassoma gilberti) don't need a chiller, so I haven't tried it out myself.

Edited by EricaWieser, 17 January 2012 - 03:00 PM.

I wish I had one but they are too expensive.

+1

I bought a chiller secondhand for fairly cheap a few months ago. It runs intermittently but needs repair of some kind, which I hope to get done soon. When I first got it, though, I had it keeping my tank in the low 60's for about a month. Everyone seemed very happy and were starting to show slightly better color when it stopped working reliably. I can't wait to get it operational again.

Anyone ever have condensation problems on the exterior of the glass when running their tanks at low temps?

Curious about how everyone here runs their systems vs how I have been running my coldwater marine systems. I use either dual paned glass tanks, or 3/4" - 1" thick acrylic tanks.

Chillers I've been picking up second hand from tropcial marine hobbyists that sell them off. My business partner just sold a 1/2 horse chiller for $100 the other day along with the lobster tank he sold that had a 1/3 horse chiller built in that needed some manintenance to function right.

I've seen tanks trying to replicate the North Atlantic that will develop condensation, with temperatures of about 10 deg. C. But if you run a tank like Derek described, I doubt you'll see condensation except at extremely high humidity levels.

I saw a tank in Japan that had crazy condensation. The glass was cold to the touch. You had to touch it though, to wipe off the water droplets and see the fish.

if you wrap a small tank in neoprene, like the wetsuit material, you can set it in a pan of water and cool it off by keeping a fan on it. i did something similar in iraq with my canteens. i would put a sock over them and keep the sock wet. it would make for about a 20 degree difference, even without much airflow. while i was in a truck, if i kept airflow on it, it would get really cold.