Cooling Air Pump

[Green Troll]

Ok apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, but we all know how bad the search option is on these forums

So it is summer (boo) and grow rooms start to get warmer. The problem i have is i am now pumping warmer than normal air into my res tank, which of course warms the soup to the same temp over time. This is bad. Less DO, 23-24 degree water not exactly good for the roots, you see my problem.

Water chillers are bloody expensive, £400-600 which is out of the question. I need my air pump to be somewhere cold and there is nowhere in the place i can put it. So i thought...what about a mini fridge? Air line is fairly thin and if i get one with a flexible seal around the door, i should, in theory, be able to stick my little air pump in the fridge, have the air line running out the seal in the door and have a small tube for new air to get in the fridge wedged in the door, so the tiny amount of negative pressure i get inside the fridge from the pump will draw in air from the room which the fridge will then chill before being pumped into the res.

Has anyone done this? Will i break my fridge by not having it properly sealed and stressing the elements? Or should it be fine for this tiny tiny amount of air being flowed through it?

I would love to hear what you guys think and also what you have done to maintain water temps. I don't want anything else going in the res if i can help it, already have 2 air stones and the submersible pump in there, so its getting a bit busy. I am using a Wilma 8 pot so you guys with the same know how small the access is at the front.

Thanks guys. After ordering my 7 stage RO system this is my last hurdle.

 

[jondamon]

Couple of 500ml coca cola bottles 3/4 full with water frozen first and then placed into the res.


Should see you right amigo.



J

 

[Green Troll]

That will last about 15 minutes. No.

 

[ASMALLVOICE]

I have a 10 gallon reservoir in my small chest freezer filled with glycol and water (antifreeze for chilled water systems, not the same type as for an automobile), I have it circulate through a stainless steel coil in my res. I have a temperature sensor in the res and it tells the pump to turn on and off to keep the res. at 65 degrees.


Works like a charm on 20+ gallons. Please note, my res. is wrapped in 1" armaflex and holds the temp very solid.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

 

[contraptionated]

I wish I could use my old aqua medic chiller for one of my reservoirs. I use super agitation of the water surface instead of chilling. It gets rather expensive to chill 650 gallons split over three reservoirs, but believe it or not, by just using a multitude of 8" diameter aluminum oxide airstones (114 to be exact) powered by 9-Danner Pondmaster AP-100 diaphragm air pumps, my dwc system is just fine straight through the summer.

Quality suffers only slightly due to the higher temps, but what is so strange is that my yields go up by approximately 10% to make up for it. I guess I learned that you just need to super-agitate the dwc containers and reservoirs even more in the summer (I put the full force of the air pumps through the stones instead of bleeding off 20-25% of the air in a separate outlet pipe contained in a water bucket, during summer temps only).

Max DO concentration gets lower in the summer but large containers and super-agitation more than makes up for it. I use about 13 gallons per plant.

 

[Green Troll]

I have a 10 gallon reservoir in my small chest freezer filled with glycol and water (antifreeze for chilled water systems, not the same type as for an automobile), I have it circulate through a stainless steel coil in my res. I have a temperature sensor in the res and it tells the pump to turn on and off to keep the res. at 65 degrees.
View attachment 2705176View attachment 2705177

Works like a charm on 20+ gallons. Please note, my res. is wrapped in 1" armaflex and holds the temp very solid.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

Engineering porn! +rep for that, sir. I wish i had the room to duplicate it though.

I should have stated the res is about 15 gallons or so, that would be a lovely system for me. But it is just not possible =(

 

[Green Troll]

Right, i have ordered this mini fridge so hopefully i won't destroy it. Soon i shall be pumping cold air into my res. The main air stone is right under the pump so hopefully it should cool it nicely. I shall let you all know how it goes.

 

[Green Troll]

It works. Res temp sitting at 22 degrees max =D

The air hose and cable leave a little gap but so far, its working just fine. The fridge is still very cold so i don't think the element is struggling. The air is obviously heating up by the time it is reaching the water via the pipe and manifold, so i could probably drop temps even further by shortening the line a bit and maybe putting the manifold in the fridge as well, and run 2 air lines out, but i'm happy with how it works at the moment.

So there is a trick to try for anyone with a warm res, put your air pump in the fridge =)

 

[jondamon]

Glad its worked out for you.

I was looking at the HALEA chillers damn man they are expensive. £250.


Then you need all the pumps etc too.


I don't need a chiller but was looking for ideas for you.



J

 

[I2icho]

How's the fridge going? Still keeping them temps down?
Interested to see how things went.

I tried something similar when I had to "hide" my grow in my shed a few weeks ago. Got the temps from 22 deg to 16 degrees with the fridge running at half power.

Before I try the same thing inside I want to know how your pump is going? Still running strong?
My concern is that the pump will cease with the cold temperatures.

Let me know what you think?