Chiller questions and reviews.

I'm looking at a few options for chilling my res and wanted to see what others thought. I run a 2 bucket 18 gallon system-- 1 bucket is in the tent and holds my lady and the other is a res outside the tent. Neither are insulated. I use the water farm drip rings and re-circulation kit on my tubs/res. Res temps are running 72-73 degrees and it's winter.

I'm pretty set on getting a chiller. So I'm thinking I can add it into the system between the res and the bucket. -- pull water into the chiller from my res and then outputting it into the bucket into the tent. Am I correct in thinking that I will no longer need the re-circulating kit cause the water will now be moved by the water pump continuously even when the chiller isn't chilling.

Anyone have the Active Aqua Chiller 1/10 hp or the EcoPlus Water Chiller 1/10hp? How loud are they and how much heat do they generate? Happy with the results?

Thanks in advance for the responses.

meltdown213 said:

Anyone have the Active Aqua Chiller 1/10 hp or the EcoPlus Water Chiller 1/10hp? How loud are they and how much heat do they generate? Happy with the results?

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I run an Ecoplus 1/4 hp chiller. It is quiet, The chiller will put off enough heat that you'll want to keep it outside the tent.
When buying a chiller you'll need to match the water pump gph with the chiller gph.


Hope that helps a little
Happy growing
Uc~

UnderCurrentDWC said:

I run an Ecoplus 1/4 hp chiller. It is quiet, The chiller will put off enough heat that you'll want to keep it outside the tent.
When buying a chiller you'll need to match the water pump gph with the chiller gph.


Hope that helps a little
Happy growing
Uc~

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Thanks. I've seen your op and ..WOW. Very nice. Any thoughts on my configuration?

I run passive intake, so can the chiller still be in the same room w/o raising the temps too much? Any idea on how much it raises overall room temp?

+ rep. Thanks for the input. I got to thinking about things and will step it up to 1/4 hp. The room itself is rather large and I think can handle the heat...it's inside the tent with a 600w with the exhaust turned off that things can get around 80 and outside the tent is usually around 70. I use a 6 inch exhaust but turn it off/on every 15 minutes for Co2.

I was starting to leans towards using the same recirc system as well...just like to minimize power consumption whenever I can.

Thanks again.

So I went with the Active Aqua Chiller 1/4 hp. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] I keep wondering why I can't just add it between my res and my bucket? Put the pump in the res, run it to the chiller and then out it to the bucket. Makes more sense than pumping it back to the res only to use more electricity to recirc it into the bucket. Anybody run theirs this way?[/FONT]

meltdown213 said:

So I went with the Active Aqua Chiller 1/4 hp. I keep wondering why I can't just add it between my res and my bucket? Put the pump in the res, run it to the chiller and then out it to the bucket. Makes more sense than pumping it back to the res only to use more electricity to recirc it into the bucket. Anybody run theirs this way?

Click to expand...

Nice! I really like my chiller.

That's a mighty big one for an 18 gallon system.
If your drip ring can handle the minimum gph recommended for your chiller without slowing the flow than I think it would be fine to combine the 2 into 1

Happy growing
Uc~

If there's anything I've learned from this hobby, buy bigger if you can afford it. Else you just end up doing a lot of upgrading. Besides, I switch things up from time to time. I'll post a review after this weekend when I get everything insulated.

I'm a little worried that flow between the tubs isn't as fast as the water coming out of the chiller.-- Both are 1/2 inch tube. That could be a problem. I'm using a 264 gph water pump. If it seems too much I might try increasing the distance between the res and chiller to see if that helps.

I think the minimum gph for my 1/4hp is 750, I would guess yours is some where near that if so you'll need a bigger water pump to avoid burning up your chiller.
also you'll want your passive return line to be at least 4 times larger than your active intake or you'll have problems with backup & overflow.

Minimum on mine is a 250 gph. Didn't realize the difference on the lines...thanks. That will make it interesting.

couple ice probes would probably do you but they'd cost as much as a chiller (depending on what you get), the operating cost would be less though.

dbkick said:

couple ice probes would probably do you but they'd cost as much as a chiller (depending on what you get), the operating cost would be less though.

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I did look into them. Just as you said, 2 would cost almost as much as I paid for the chiller. I'm only doing 18 gallons this time but I often do more. So I needed something stronger for future grows.

So the insulation I went with to do my tubs has almost eliminated the need for the chiller all together. Basically, by keeping the heat off/out my tubs and keeping the cool temps in... my res is around 65f.

for that small an amount of water to chill I was gonna suggest an ice probe but not having had any real experience with ice probes I can't.

jesus I'm moving in cicles, pardon suggesting the ice probes twice! xans have that affect on me

my chiller sits mainly anymore, its on but its not functioning, man I like winter , although it doesn't much seem like winter right now. In the summer you'll be wanting one though I bet.

dbkick said:

my chiller sits mainly anymore, its on but its not functioning, man I like winter , although it doesn't much seem like winter right now. In the summer you'll be wanting one though I bet.

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I can't say enough about the gains I got from insulating my whole system, lines and all. There are very few places for the cool temps to escape and the warm temps to penetrate. I had to set the chiller to 60 just it to see it kick on and work for the first time last night. I do expect to use it more in the summer as well but I think the overall usage will be down greatly over those who use one without insulation.

I tried to run the chiller directly from the res and into the tub/buckets without much success. Basically, the water needs to be able to escape as fast as it comes into the tub or else the tub will overflow. As far as the chiller I bought, very pleased. It is very quite and doesn't seem to generate much heat.

meltdown213 said:

So I went with the Active Aqua Chiller 1/4 hp. I keep wondering why I can't just add it between my res and my bucket? Put the pump in the res, run it to the chiller and then out it to the bucket. Makes more sense than pumping it back to the res only to use more electricity to recirc it into the bucket. Anybody run theirs this way?

Click to expand...

I just got an ActiveAqua 1/10 hp. I have a water cooled light, 1000w, 6 buckets with 2' uniseals and a 7th pump bucket for the recirculation. 20 gal for nutes. 100 gal for the light. The problems are 2.
- the light will tax the res. in the summer
- the big air pump adds heat to the water

So, my idea is to put the chiller after the light, before the reservoir return line. Then a 1/6 hp sump pumps it back. But, before the light, the chilled water runs through a copper coil heat exchanger in the pump bucket. This way I avoid the salt in the chiller.

I'm thinking I can get the entire 120 gal. balanced at about 65 F. We shall see. Right now I'm at 75 F using frozen juice jugs.

let me know how that goes.. im going to need one for summer and im trying to decide if i need a 1/4 HP or a 1/10 HP, and whether to get the EcoPlus or the ActiveAqua. decisions decisions..
im running a 10 site 35-45 gal