My air conditioner had a baby!! Well actually its a new type of chiller for my tank. Thomas Franklin a.k.a. Tfrank01 on Razorback Reef is hooking me up!! I will take more pics later, but so far this set up rocks. My other two chillers that were in my garage would get the garage really hot while trying to cool the water down, kinda of chasing their tails. This unit keeps the water temp on my Ranco controller at 77 degrees easily, and keeps the garage much cooler. While its still gets warm, not nearly as warm as it was. I have been having trouble with one of my chillers, and the water had reached 85 degrees with my 1/4 horse working its butt off. Now the 1/4 horse never comes on. Its only been two/three full days of use so far, but I am really very impressed with it so far. In the first picture you can see the umbilical cord coming out of the wall, now ain't that cute. Its a chip off of the ol' block!! These photos were actually taken right after the electricians ran the power. Thomas and I have not ran the copper pipe yet. Its a little different than the Tradewind or Aqua-Logic models as you have to bring the water to the unit. We actually used a heat exchanger inside the garage and ran the copper tubing to it. Will post more pics of that tomorrow. Thomas has been very kind with his time and effort on this project. I really appreciate what he has done for Cindy and I with our aquarium!! Don't blame me for the picture size, I am being told it will resize photos automatically. More to follow...
Sorry about the order of the shots. I did not know to attach the picture you want to be last first. One more frag tank shot.
So, it sounds like you did the exact same thing as I did with a window unit but on a larger scale with a several ton unit? If so what did you use as the heat exchanger?
The heat exchanger is in the 6th picture down. Its sideways in the picture though. This thing works great!! My water stays pretty much within 1/2 - 1 degree of the set point of 78 degrees.
Update. Chiller still working awesome!! TFranklin did an awesome job!! Now the best news to me. My electric bill for June 20th 2008- July 21-08 of 2008 was $450.94 and for June 23rd 2009 - July -22-09 it was $346.74. The 2008 bill was using my two Aqua-Logic chillers inside my garage. They ran constantly day and night. It has already paid me back for the copper tubing I had to buy to install it. Plus the piece of mind I have not worrying about if the chillers will keep going or not. I do have it plumbed so if the big one happens to go down, One of my Aqua-logics will come on to prevent the tank from cooking. I will keep posting what my bill was and is now with the new chiller for the next few months.
I am glad that you have been pleased with the outcome of our little chiller experiment. I thought that you would see an electric bill improvement but i did not expect it to improve over $ 100 !!!! Thats awesome...You need to be looking for a 24V controller for the future though. I need to make a few improvements later this fall.
