Water Chilling

Frito Bandito420 said:

Atlantis hydroponics knows their stuff. I go to the one in chattanooga. great people. matter of fact I got to go there today maybe ill look into a chiller because I been using frozen water bottles myself. its a pain in the ass to do it everyday lol

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They have this chiller in their catalog for $379. You can also go in line and order but these thimgs are heavy so shipping would be pricey.

http://www.atlantishydroponics.com/Water-Chillers-and-Heaters/Active-Aqua-Active-Aqua-WATER-CHILLER-110HP.asp

What about running enough pipe underground to hold the contents of your res, and having a pump cycle the water through that pipe periodically? For instance you would have a res full of solution, and a pipe underground full of solution, periodically the pump would push the contents of the res into the pipe under ground, and the pipe would empty into your res. I don't know where everyone's at, but last I heard spring water is a constant 72 (ish) degrees when it comes out of the ground. Also, in the nothern USA there are people who use this method instead of chillers for their AC units.

You could probably get your cost down to < $150 by using a water cooling system designed for computer CPU's. Basically they are self contained pump/fan/radiators with tubes connected to a heat sink. They have controls and are relatively low power,high efficiency and very quiet units. They use a coolant typically, so its basically a mini radiator hooked up to the heat sink (which you would place in the reservoir). Bonus is that its a closed system so it wouldn't actually use your reservoir water in any way AND the heat sink is about the size of a jar lid and its flat so it would present less risk to roots than an ice pack.

Not sure if anyone has tried this, but its an interesting idea. I want to max out my dissolved O2 in the reservoir and one way to do that is to lower the res temps, i'm thinking 60-65 deg.

I think I'll try doing the small fridge with an air pump inside of it. That way I can use the air that's already going through the air stones for DWC through out cold water plus all the unused plugs for tubes can be used to dump cold air into the water also. This way I'm getting more aeration and less back pressure which I'm afraid could be damaging my air pump at such early stages. I'll be doing this with 3 gallon dwc buckets. Hopefully I remember to provide pictures.

One problem I just thought of though is, am I going to cause a vacuum inside the fridge or what kind of intakes do I need to make on the fridge?

Where ever you run your airlines just make the holes a bit larger than the lines this should solve that issue.
Just dont make it to big of a hole

Thanks for responses and opinions everybody

I've had good luck useing an iglo water cooler with 1/2" coil poly tubing but, twice a day I drop a frozen gallon jug down into the water cooler w/water.
I pump out eight DWC units through the cooler and into a res, when the pump shuts off it siphons back into the DWC. My air lines are also in the cooler. I'm going out to the grow room anyway so grab a jug on the way. I do have alot of idle time on my hands.

P.S
The water will disperse the heat faster then the air will.

we know a chiller is a win all hense the reason all my res tanks have a chiller! but I think cost is a issue for him

If your also wanting to avoid backpressure by having the airpump inside the refrigerator, there is another solution. Keep the airpump outside of the fridge. Run lines from the pump into the fridge through holes drilled into door. This would pump air into the open space. Run lines out of additional holes drilled in the side or door that go to your air stones. You would be pushing 100% chilled air through the stones and not losing any temp by pulling chilled air through the pump. It would take a few minutes to build up the pressure inside the fridge, but should work.
Was laying out this design the other day and will be putting it together next weekend. Will throw up pics of the build as it is done.

dankhoe417 said:

If your also wanting to avoid backpressure by having the airpump inside the refrigerator, there is another solution. Keep the airpump outside of the fridge. Run lines from the pump into the fridge through holes drilled into door. This would pump air into the open space. Run lines out of additional holes drilled in the side or door that go to your air stones. You would be pushing 100% chilled air through the stones and not losing any temp by pulling chilled air through the pump. It would take a few minutes to build up the pressure inside the fridge, but should work.
Was laying out this design the other day and will be putting it together next weekend. Will throw up pics of the build as it is done.

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Been there & done that,it will not work to chill a rez,it wont even lower the temp a single degree,i didnt use a fridge,i used outside air temps in michigan in the dead of winter which reach -30 below zero,i used 200 lft tubing & burried half in snow & ice & left the other half of the coil exposed to air,not one bit of cool air comes thru the lines.

The problem & why it wont work is that air pumps are piston or diofram action which creates heat,the air dont stay in the line long enough for heat to dissapate.

I use geothermal cooling for my rez's where they are underground & it works great,i tried just sinking 100 lft hose in the ground & leaving the rez above ground & that didnt work,i flood once an hour & the water in the hose didnt have enough time to cool off.

Another huge drawback to using geothermal cooling via a hose sunk in the ground is added nutrients,it adds alot more volume to the rez.

Anybody ever thought of using a drinking fountain to cool their rez?

Seems to me that a metal drinking fountian that is powered & cooled would be the exact design as a chller,build a thermostat into the power supply & you'd have a chiller.

Guess i did not explain well enough. I do like the coiled lines with a pump to cirulate the solution inside the fridge, but what i was trying to explain was using the fridge cavity as a beak in the airlines from the pump. You would basically be pushing cool air from the fridge cavity through tje second set of lines going to the stones. Kind of like using the cavity as a back flow preventor.
Prob wont be incredibly effective but i found a small fridge at a garage sale for 10 bucks, so it is worth a try.

dankhoe417 said:

If your handy, you can find those small dorm room refrigerators for next to nothing on craigslist, garage sales, etc. Get a small, cheap pump, drill two holes in side of refrig. Drop pump in rez, run output line into fridge, coil about 5-8 feet of line inside and have it run back into rez. Not the most efficient with poly tubing, but PEX works ok, stainless would be best for temp transfer. NO COPPER!

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Why no copper? I've seen this a couple times now. Home Brewers have been using copper for a LONG time now with no ill effects. I disagree with this completely to be honest, copper is a great material for using in building a chiller unless something odd happens when the nutrient solution hits it. We literally dunk copper coils in hot beer and run cool tap water through it until the beer is where it needs to be. Where does the problem lie with hydroponics?

Might have just been my situation, but several years ago i used a wort chiller with a pump to cool rez solution and had this funky smell coming from inside the copper line. The coil was never used for beer ,so i could only attribute it to the nutes reacting with it. Again, could have just been my situation only. Just didnt want anyone else to have the same issue. Made my bloom room and rez smell aweful. No slime amd no bugs and was using GH 3part.
Gonna do a bit of homework on it though because it sure kept my temps down. Couldnt see any visible deficiency issues in the plant either.

Copper & salt dont mix,any type salt will oxidize the copper & eat thru it,ever see a copper roof thats green,thats oxidation at work,there is a special copper treated to stop oxidation,plain ole copper will oxidize very fast when it comes in contact with salt.

Thanks pan for saving me the time. Had a feeling something in the mix was affecting it. I knew that acids caused some reactions, but not the salts.
Hopefully there is some reasonably priced stainless tubing out there.

dankhoe417 said:

Thanks pan for saving me the time. Had a feeling something in the mix was affecting it. I knew that acids caused some reactions, but not the salts.
Hopefully there is some reasonably priced stainless tubing out there.

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If you get a chance Google " Liquid Glass". Pore it inside the tubing and let set for a few minets and drain. Prestoe, you have glass lined tubeing and cheeper then SS. Hope this will help you.

Looked it up. Appears there might be an issue with it bonding to the inside of the copper tubing without sufficient heat to dissipate the water molecules. Could be wrong. Although, you might be able to loosly plug both ends of the filled coil and heat in an oven at a reasonable temperature to facilitate the silicate bonding.
AlB....Panhead...any feedback here?

Water glass is used as coagulant/flocculant agent in waste water treatment plants. Waterglass binds to colloidal molecules, creating larger aggregates that sink to the bottom of the water column. The microscopic negatively charged particles suspended in water interact with sodium silicate. Their electrical double layer collapses due to the increase of ionic strength caused by the addition of sodium silicate (doubly negatively charged anion accompanied by two sodium cations) and they subsequently aggregate. This process is called coagulation/flocculation

Not sure if the layer of "liquid glass" would affect nutrients in solution or if the nutes would affect the layer of siicate inside the tubing.