Chiller

ArtD · Post by **ArtD** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 1:48 pm

A friend and I were recently talking about my aquarium set-up. He suggested I would need a chiller. I had never heard about one before so I did a little research and now that I understand what it is my question is do I need one? I have never seen one or been recommended to have one before.

What do you think?

RickD · Post by **RickD** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 10:38 pm

Do you keep the House cool my tank stays about 82 and I have a lot of lights? So I think the answer is if the room is hot then you need a chiller if it stay cool about 72 you would be fine. Gerwin tells me that the tank temp needs to be consistence all the time so a heater is more important then the chiller. Hope that helps.

ArtD · Post by **ArtD** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 9:06 am

I am currently in the process of setting up the tank so I suppose that if I need a chiller I can get one a little way down the road. The house is usually kept in the 75 degree range so while that is 3 degrees over your recommendation it is my hope that the consistent temp is the important thing.

Post by **Doug** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:02 pm

I would say you only need a chiller if you cannot keep the water temp in your desired range for some reason:

* Lighting system outputting too much heat.
* Trying to keep cold water species.
* Don't want to pay to run A/C all day. (but running a chiller may offset some savings)

In the absence of added heat, your tank should equilibrate with room temp. As stated above, consistency is more important than absolute temp. If 77Â° is optimal, and your tank runs 80Â° (consistently) as a result of ambient temp, lighting, filter pumps, etc, it's not any real problem.

Post by **Gerwin** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 9:50 pm

RickD wrote:Do you keep the House cool my tank stays about 82 and I have a lot of lights? So I think the answer is if the room is hot then you need a chiller if it stay cool about 72 you would be fine. Gerwin tells me that the tank temp needs to be consistence all the time so a heater is more important then the chiller. Hope that helps.

almost correct,

consistency is the goal and gaining that through heating when possible is way more economical than chilling is the point I was making so long ago with you.
Both items allow you to fix a temp. to a desired point one above ambient the other below. And as Doug stated as long as those ranges are in the acceptable parameters you should be fine either way. Heaters are about 15 times cheaper than chillers, and often a simple fan can correct your temp a few degrees to the lower.

Once your tank is setup and running with lights and ll equipment we can go from there to further this discussion.

Post by **Gerwin** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 9:56 pm

Doug wrote:I would say you only need a chiller if you cannot keep the water temp in your desired range for some reason:

* Lighting system outputting too much heat.
* Trying to keep cold water species.
* Don't want to pay to run A/C all day. (but running a chiller may offset some savings)

In the absence of added heat, your tank should equilibrate with room temp. As stated above, consistency is more important than absolute temp. If 77Â° is optimal, and your tank runs 80Â° (consistently) as a result of ambient temp, lighting, filter pumps, etc, it's not any real problem.

the only problem in the equilibrate thinking is with HO lighting the temp will rise and fall if some device is not employed to help establish a constant temp. and since I happen to know Arts' goals are a reef tank, this must be considered
I am sure Doug meant this as he is all knowing, but it came across in a way that I thought I would clarify for us normal people.