Home Made Chiller Idea

Hi guys and girls,
this is my first post but i have been looking round the forum for a few months now so it's a pleasure to finally say hello.

I have a large tank with two small white axalotls (caspa and flo) which are about 4-5". The average temperature of the tank stays around 23 C or 73 F. They seem to be happy, eat well and are growing quickly but i am aware that this is not the ideal temperature especially as occasionally it rises with the hot weather a few degrees F.

My Idea to solve this is to use an external filter system with a difference. I plan to have a tube coming out the tank running to an external filter system, then out from that run it into a car oil cooler that has two computer fans fixed to it blowing a constant cool stream of air through it. Then run another tube from the other end of the oil cooler back into the tank.

I have not been able to find anyone who has tried this but i am willing to give it a go as i have a spair oil cooler in the garage brand new and unopened. The image attached is what it looks like for those who don't know

Who thinks that this has anychance of working? and it is worth me giving it a go?

Thanks in advance,
felix

Ah car bits and Axies, my 2 favourite things I think it's a brilliant idea, let me know if it works, I might just try it

I may be completely wrong but I don’t think it’ll be very efficient. An oil cooler works because the oil is very hot – much hotter than the metal cooling fins.

In your design the water is room temperature and you’re blowing room temperature air at the fins so they will also be room temperature. Unless you have a source of very cool air to constantly blow on the oil cooler the temperature exchange is going to be minimal.

Even if you could create the temperature gradient, how fast would the water flow through the oil cooler? Maybe too fast to make any noticeable difference.

Like I said I may be completely wrong. Physics isn’t my strong point…

I'm going to have to agree with Mark here. I don't know exactly what the oil cooler is, but to me it looks like a simple heat sink. It cools the oil by essentially giving the oil a large surface area to be exposed to the surrounding cooler air. Heat leaves the oil for the finned block which is made out of a good conductor. The oil is now cooler and the large surface area provided by the fins allows many sites for heat exchange with the atmosphere. This means that the fluid being cooled can only be brought down to room temperature.

In fact, if you are using fans or other methods to cool your tank water this device will heat your water back up to room temperature. I also don't think it will work in reverse so cooling the block and expecting the water to cool may be disappointing. The device in principle only moves things towards equilibrium.

my idea for when summer comes back around is to run the filter tubes out the tank and though the freezer then back to the tank other wise ill have to look into some thing else haha i like the idea thou

thanks for all your replies, after a brief chat with my father this has been confirmed to me. I thought i was onto something but my quest for cheap cooling looks like it will have to continue, i shall let all know if i devise a cheap solution to this ever growing problem,
felix

I just keep some half full pop bottles in the freezer and rotate them if the tank gets too warm over summer. Not needed them this year (so far)