Behold! The Chilter (Chiller/Filter)

My axolotl has started to out grow her five gallon tank that I used to keep in a wine cooler to keep her chilled. So I re-purposed the wine cooler into the new Chilter!

I placed a rena (now owned by API) filter in the wine cooler along with 12 extra feet of tubing for the outlet (which allows for extra time and exposure to the cold temps inside the wine cooler. If this has trouble in the summer I will insulate the hose on the outside of the cooler on the way to the tank to further reduce heat loss.

Pros:

It's cheap compared to a chiller. Cost me less than 200$ to put together which includes the brand new rena (which I think is now called the Filstar small).

It does two jobs at once acting as a filter and a chiller. Score!

You can adjust how cold by adjusting the temp in the wine cooler (or mini fridge).

The API Filstar (Rena XP) comes with a spray bar that you can point up to reduce the current.

Looks good if you can hide it.

Happy axolotl is happy in nice cold water, even in summer.

Cons:

It takes up a lot of space, the size of a wine cooler to be exact. If you have a closet on the other side of the wall where your tank is you can put it there...assuming you adventurous enough to put holes in your walls.

It does require some power tools and some 'creative plumping' to put together.

Did I mention it takes up a LOT of space?

Basic set up is no different than normal filter. This pic is a test run. Added extra 12 feet of tubing to increase the amount of time that the water is in contact with the cooling elements.



Use a door knob drill bit to put a large hole in the side of the wine cooler/mini fridge. Be very careful not to put a hole in the actual cooling element (if you the gases inside will leak out and that's not good!). On most coolers the cooling element is made of metal and is towards the back so they are obvious. I got my wine cooler on Craigslist's for 20$. Be careful, this drill bit was not meant to be used on metal.



I got the extra 12 feet of tubing at Home Depot in the pond section, I attached it to the standard filter tubing using stretch and seal silicone tape also from Home Depot in the plumbing section.



Use aluminum tape (also from home depot) to cover up the rest of the hole where the tube and the cord for the filter come out.



This is all set *behind* my 20 gallon long as it would not fit under the stand. In my room it works since on top of the chilter I have my other mini fridge that I turned into a ball python egg incubator (I hate using things for their intended purpose).

And the water cycles slow enough through the filter to chill it?

That's a nice set up.

Mini fridge incubator for the win!
I also have a huge 160 bottle wine fridge i made into an incubator lol
and everyone thought I was crazy because it was so huuggeee

The extra 12 feet of hose is coiled and pressed tightly against the chilling element of the wine cooler for that added contact with cold. It don't have the wine cooler on 'high' because I want to slowly muck with the settings in case something drastic does work I don't want to suddenly plunge the temperature. With the filter itself in there after a few days the plastic and foam in there will also cool and add to the cooling power.

I will not really know the cooling power of the Chilter (name patten pending) until summer! However I'll have an update in a few days. The tank was 66 this morning, it is 65 now, so at least it's working a little bit with the wine cooler on 'low'.


What do you hatch in your incubator?

Very cool, great idea.

I hatched my chickens in my smaller one lol

Usually the bigger one is ball pythons, western hognose snakes, corn snakes, bearded dragons, leopard and fat tail geckos.
next season hopeing to add the albino house snakes

That is awesome, and looks great.
Great job

Chickens!!

My big one is for ball pythons and hognose! I used to breed house snakes, be careful those things quickly breed out of control!! Also they really like to lay their eggs in their water dishes so when the female gets close you really need to remove it and just let her drink by spraying her environment down.

Well I know that it can drop the temp now! I had the wine cooler set on '3' and it had dropped the temp by one degree over the day, so I moved it to '4' (out of 7) and over night it dropped the temp by four degrees. So I notched the cooler back to '3'. Tank is now sitting at 66 degrees. Since I can go all the way to 7 I think it is safe to say that no matter how warm it gets this summer as long as there is power in the house I can keep my Bluebell cold!

GlowingCool said:

Chickens!!

My big one is for ball pythons and hognose! I used to breed house snakes, be careful those things quickly breed out of control!! Also they really like to lay their eggs in their water dishes so when the female gets close you really need to remove it and just let her drink by spraying her environment down.

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Yes! Chickens!
I hatched two baby polish chickens, who lucked out to be both girls because roosters aren't allowed in city limits. They should start giving me fresh eggs soon, Yum!

oohh I know AHS are such butts! I have Spotted... if the two females decided to lay albino babies out control though I will have no complaints haha

Hoping for some nice clutches this year, crossing fingers for some green and albino anaconda hognose

GlowingCool said:

Well I know that it can drop the temp now! I had the wine cooler set on '3' and it had dropped the temp by one degree over the day, so I moved it to '4' (out of 7) and over night it dropped the temp by four degrees. So I notched the cooler back to '3'. Tank is now sitting at 66 degrees. Since I can go all the way to 7 I think it is safe to say that no matter how warm it gets this summer as long as there is power in the house I can keep my Bluebell cold!

Click to expand...

Sounds like you are set for any summer weather.
I've been lucky here that my house is shaded so well by trees and the back rooms stay at least in the low 70's no matter how hot it is.

Since the tank is in my reptile room and I'm not a big fan of air conditioning I really do need the chiller..but it does look like Bluebell will be chillaxing this summer!