tommy217xxx
Well-Known Member
I just looked at my pump and it's only the 40 and it pumps some air.
best air pump choice
- Thread starter jronnn
- Start date
GrowerGoneWild
Well-Known Member
Go with a fountain pump, if you are going with a setup thats constantly on with an intake on each bucket. Make a waterfall, drop the water onto some filter media before it returns to the tanks. I just took a small 4 inch pot, and stacked a bunch of filter media in it to trap the root bits before it returns to the tank. Then the water splashed down into the tank. So you'll get air and filtered water before it returns to the tank. And its easy to clean. Most people say filter the intake side, but its hard to clean the filters when the intakes are in the tank.
This may not sound obvious, but their are dead spots when circulating so you get these hot spots unless you are aggressive with agitation and circulation.
thats also a good option but I'm doing ebb and flow wit 50gallon totes so think the only way id want to use waterfalls is if i used 2 of them. if i were to do that id probably just use a venturi pump
yeah i actually posted a thread a few months ago on like 8 different forums asking if that would work and it seems like only a few people have thought of it....
how strong was the chiller you had and how many worts could you put on it to be effective?
how much could the chiller bring the temp downs?
did you just use water as the fluid that pumped through the worts/chiller or did you use refrigerant?
i was thinking about getting a 1/2 HP chiller for every 3 or 4 totes and put 1 wort in each tote. do you think this could work? it seemed like it could according to the calculations i did a while ago
rkymtnman
Well-Known Member
my chiller is 1/10 HP. i used 2 wort chillers: 1 per 27 gallon tote. so i had a stand alone 15 gal tote (maybe 10 gals water in it) with 3 water pumps in it. 1 pump to pump to the chiller and back to the tote. the other 2 pumps pumped out to the 2 totes in my grow room.
i think i set the chiller at 60F to get 68F in my grow totes.
i think the 1/2 would be fine (maybe even too much) for 3 to 4 totes. although it's better to have too much chiller vs too small.
i think i set the chiller at 60F to get 68F in my grow totes.
i think the 1/2 would be fine (maybe even too much) for 3 to 4 totes. although it's better to have too much chiller vs too small.
Well i figured because they're 50gal totes just to be safe the id get the 1/2hp one but thats exactly how i was going to do it except have all the worts connected in series and back to the little 15 gallons. only thing that would suck is the last wort in the series would get the least heat exchange, i was also thinking what if i used just an inline pump directly connected from the chiller and to all the worts (with some water inside) and just ran it like that. sure it still wont cool down the totes very evenly but it eliminates the needed for another tote
rkymtnman
Well-Known Member
method 1: yeah, the last tote would suffer temp wise. would be hard to keep similar temps in each tote too.
method 2: wouldn't be enough water for the chiller to operate properly.
on method 1, what if i just had a 3way split connected the the pump and connect it to the worts? do you think that would work? I've just never seen someone use a split on a water pump but it would be better than running 3 separate water pumps
rkymtnman
Well-Known Member
the main reason i used 3 pumps was that i kinda staggered my totes. tote 1 would start earlier and then tote 2 would start in a few weeks.
but yeah,, a 3 way manifold would work perfectly. if you could build one with 3 shut off valves inline then you could isolate totes too.
GreenLegend420
Well-Known Member
I have an alita 40 and 80 and he is right on. Your rez will look like a hot tub running with a couple stones!