Help with chiller please!!!

Gilraen

New Member
I hooked a CL-85 chiller into my 12 gal. nano. It's been a little over 1/2 an hour and it hasn't cool 1 stinking degree... how long does it take for it to work? The temp. is 88 degree and the chiller is set up to 78 degree. The pump I'm using is a QuietOne 1200, it runs at 296gph. Chiller's instructions say max. gph should be 160. Could that be a problem? I couldn't find a smaller pump than this one that is not submersible. Any ideas, advise would be greatly appreciated!!! Also the temp. in the house is 82 degrees, I can't understand why the water is 88. The lights are off too... Thanks :anxious
 

skipm

Moderator
Staff member
The tanks temp is higher than the house temp because of mechanical devices like filter and pumps plus the fish and other inhabitants metabolism also adds to the heat, you can even have some heat due to chemical reactions like the tanks biological cycle.
You have hit on the biggest problem with your set up, the flow rate is too fast. The water is pasing through the heat exchanger part of the chiller too fast for any exchange to take place. The flowrate has to be fast enough so that the water can't freeze up inside of the exchanger but slow enough for an exchange to take place. If you need a smaller submersible pump you may have to go to a powerhead. Remember to take head loss into consideration if applicable. You could also add a tee into the pump you already have and bleed some of the excess flow off.
 

TimSchmidt

New Member
Too much flow. Plus even with temps that high I'd let a full day pass in between the tweaks to let the temps gradually adjust. Are you sure you'd need a pump that in not submersible? Couldn't a powerhead just pump the water to the chiller outside of the tank?
 

Gilraen

New Member
Thanks for the input guys, as of now (5 hrs. later) the temp. has gone down 4 degrees. I do not have any livestock in it yet, I'm trying out the chiller with just plain freshwater to see how it works (it works for both fresh and saltwater). You all are right, I'm going to buy a smaller/slower sumersible pump and see how that goes. Thanks again!!!
 

EDGRAY

New Member
Hey any pics of the chiller?? just curious how it looks on your tank so i can picture it... :mrgreen:
Aslo :Welcome GILRAEN... you're gonna love this site... pretty nice people and alot of help. :oops:
 

Gilraen

New Member
Thanks Edgray, unfortunately no pics yet, last night I had to move the tank to another room because of the noise the chiller creates...soooooo I had to start again with day 1... as soon as it's all set up I'll take a few pics and post them. :langle
 
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