Iceprobe Chiller

B

brian

Guest
I bought this chiller and have it in my 40 gallon tank (about 20 gallons of water). I purchased this because the temperature was reaching 76 during the day.

The temperature outside of the tank is 78 degrees. The inside water temperature (at the opposite corner of the tank) is 68 degrees.

The Chiller is a lot bigger than I had imagined. (I'll post a picture of it later.) I have it on an eggcrate setup right now, but the heat sink is still in the tank and that isn't allowing the water to get as cold is it may be able to.

I have decided to go with a sump and I'm going to try and insulate it so I can get the temperatures lower, and having the heat sink farther away will also help.

I decided not to get a temperature controller as one can only pull the temperature down about 10 degrees in my size tank.
 
Hi--Hope this doesn't seem too obvious, but I was recently amazed to find an ambient room temperature that varied by more than 4-5 degrees (F) in about 4 feet distance. I was considering a chiller (too$$) and although I knew there were variations in my living room, I guess I didn't previously measure carefully. It helped that I had gotten a stick-on digital thermometer that was very responsive and super easy to read as I moved it around (pre-sticking on!). I realized I had been kind of guestimating with the small lined thermometer I had moved around before. As a result, my new axies are at a comfy 70 degrees just 4 feet from where they were getting toward 75 degrees before. And my 12 bettas have relocated to the warmer clime and are bubbling happily.

I was also considering using some granite or marble pieces either in the axie tank or under it, as they supposedly stay cooler than room air. I have slate pieces in there anyway for rest and food areas, but slate does not have this property.

I also made some ice cubes of pretreated water and can float those as emergency fix. (Get an ice cube tray with a distinctive shape if you live with other people--these trays are easy to find in the summer).

I've been to Memphis in the summer--good luck!
 
Chillers work but as Brian has stated they can't lower temperatures by a big amount. For my purposes and I would guess for the purposes of people with large collections air conditioning is more practical and more manageable.

Sharyl, welcome to Caudata.org. I see you are from the Horsham area. If you or anyone else from Caudata.org ever want see my salamanders let me know and we can set something up.
Michael
Ephrata, Pa. U.S.
 
Stones like granite or marble FEEL cooler to touch than the room air, but they aren't. It's a sort of sensory illusion.
 
The size of this chiller is a little larger than I thought it was going to be. I just wanted to post this so people see how large it is.

After a couple weeks having it I found that with the room being a constant 76F the tank stays at 68F even after the lights have been on all day.

I also contribute this to adding a fan at the lid to help pull the hot air out of the tank.

39533.jpg
 
Here is a picture of how I currently have it mounted since I did not drill the tank. I circled the extra fan I have to pull the hot air out of the tank (because it was just getting blown around the tank before, and not cooling as much as it could).

I will be adding a sump so I can have it drilled and put the chiller in there. (Although this will add more water)

I changed about half of the water today and there is about 15 gallons of water in this tank.

I have been using actual glass thermometers to measure the temperatures inside and out, and they are very accurate, and the placement in the room does not allow for any drafts.

The placement of this tank was determined by my girlfriend as she wanted it to be a center piece to the living room.

39536.jpg
 
Interesting way of mounting it without needing to drill the tank. Just one suggestion. As the centerpiece of your living room, it might look nicer if the mounting apparatus were black instead of white. I'm thinking perhaps you could make it out of one of those black plastic mesh pots that are sold for pond plants.

Also, are there any moving parts on the chiller? I'm wondering what would happen if a newt climbed up on top of the chiller itself.
 
dosent having the heatsink inside the tank kind of defeat the purpose of the chiller in the first place?
 
I am going to build a small plexi-glass box that will fit in a corner, it will be insulated and painted black as to not detract from the tank. It is going to have a fan pulling air into one side and pulling it out the other side (so there is more direct movement directly across the heat sink which will be insulated and seperate from the tank air.

Yes having the heatsink inside the tank somewhat defeats the purpose. It is still currently pulling the temperatures down 6 degrees below ambient air temperature (was 66 when I woke up this morning). I have the AC on too, but if it was 6 degrees lower in the house I would end up spending more on utilities in a few months than it costed to get this unit.
 
thats not too bad at all. Glad it works for you. The way some people have the hooked up is directly into a hang-on-tank powerfilter or drilled right into the tank, but yours seems to work fine
 
How does this chiller work? Is it just a heatsink which lowers the water to room temp, or does it have a thermoelectric cooler in it? I ask because I am considering building my own custom chiller using a thermoelectric peltier.
 
I am considering buying one of those myself, and i was discouraged by the drilling aspect but you seem to have a good idea there. The whole unit is completely water-proof right? just in case it slipped into the water somehow?

I plan to use that good stuff foam to build a shelve in my viv so i may section off the more visible intrusion of the chiller with a small partition of foam painted like rock
 
Couple of things - first up - how much was the chiller and where do you get it from?

And regarding the marble/granite/slate - It will take longer to heat up than air temp, but will also take longer to cool down.
 
Any way you can manage it without drilling the glass is a good one. I install flat glass for a living and drill numerous different sized holes every day (for electrical sockets and light fixtures behind mirrors and whatnot)and sometimes it just cracks. Annealed glass is finicky stuff, and if its tempered glass it will just break into a million tiny sharp little pieces. Usually only the bottom glass is tempered, and should be labeled if it is. This is the main reason i do not use chillers. I use plastic milk jugs full of water which I freeze overnight and swap in the morning. A .5 gallon works well enough in my 55 gallon to keep it around 62-68F depending on ambient room temps. Good luck with whatever you try!
 
I guess I'm going to pick up an IceProbe Chiller. Those darn Republicans poked that hole in the ozone and now it doesn't get cold at my house in the winter. It looks like the chiller is about 110.00. The temp controller runs about 50.00 so I think I'll skip it. It doesn't seem like it will take to much energy so it should be ecofriendly.
 
I picked up the chiller yesterday and installed it. it's about 70F in my back yard today. It looks like getting the chiller will pay off. I plan to rotate salamanders in and out of the chilled tank for about 3 weeks in tank for each colony. If I like it after a month or two I might get another one.
 
i have a arctica dba-075 chiller for my 70 galon bowfront aquarium. have 5 axolotls and have no problem keeping temperture at 64 degrees. cost $400 but i think its well worth it. no worrying about water tempture in aquarium. live in wisconson so only use my house ac only if it gets above 85 degrees. tired using jugs of frozen water in a insulted cooler going to aquarium and back too much of a pain and not very reaiable
 
I've been using the iceprobe and the 2 liter frozen soda bottle. The soda bottle does a lot better job than the ice probe. I change bottles 3 times a day in a 10 gallon tank a little better than half full. Jennifer is right about those internal filters warming the tank a little. I still use the internal filter because I like it. Maybe I'll switch to sponge filters in my cool down tank eventually.
 
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