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Can my old setup cool 12 gallons of saltwater

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I take it you want to cool your fishy tank??:confused:

Is the coral light halogen? My guess it is, so it probably is putting out about 25-75 watts?

Sure the setup you shown would cool 75 watts of heat easily.

Of course the corrosion from the salt would puncture the copper radiator in probably a week or so.

Why not just get an aquarium cooer?

http://www.marineandreef.com/shoppro/chillers_CoolWorks.html
 
You DO NOT want to use saltwater for anything computer related! Saltwater corrodes extremely quick. Since most of the waterblocks you will be using are made, at least in part, of copper, you can expect yourself to be screwed in a matter of days to weeks. You might as well cool with an acid.

Use a mixture of denatured alcohol and deionized or distilled water.
 
Vampiregabe said:
I take it you want to cool your fishy tank??:confused:

Is the coral light halogen? My guess it is, so it probably is putting out about 25-75 watts?

Sure the setup you shown would cool 75 watts of heat easily.

Of course the corrosion from the salt would puncture the copper radiator in probably a week or so.

Why not just get an aquarium cooer?

http://www.marineandreef.com/shoppro/chillers_CoolWorks.html

exactly what im looking for thanks alot! Sorry for the confusion and yes to all the rest. I'm wondering what kind of heat transfer I'd receive through the glass? Nothing touching saltwather except the fishY. And remember its only 12 gallons currently running at 85F and everyone is telling me that 80F is ideal with bright light. Its sitting between two CRTs and I'm not moving it..! j/k

Thanks
 
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So...you want to mount that waterblock to the glass and remove the heat through the side of the aquarium? Sorry, but that waterblock is made to remove a lot of heat from a small area, not a little heat from a large area, in this application it would be useless. Unless I am totally missing how you are planning on doing this.
 
How is your tank set up? If you don't have a filtration system underneath then yeah it can get toasty under lighting required to sustain a reef tank. Since it's a small tank, you most likely don't have a wet/dry sump underneath, so that peltier chiller could work, or a pump-based real chiller, but that may be excessive for such a small tank. Your problem is volume, and the lights are just too high output for the small volume is what I'm guessing - not that the live rock organisms minds that of course ;).

If I were you, I would install that in a filter box or something, since the tank is already up and going and reefs don't move well. That way you get good flow around your cooler. This also gives you the option of removing it for maintenance if there should be the need for it. You do not want to, for instance, drill a hole and put this on the side of the tank without good flow around it or you'll get cool currents and warm currents, and corals really prefer a constant environment.

BTW welcome to the small reef tank frontier. If it's still considered a frontier... It's been a while since I was in the hobby, but I used to maintain about 40 marine tanks and designed a filtration system for a 60 tank system once. I used to have a nice 10 gallon tank as well, so I am somewhat familiar with the challenges they offer.
 
http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=CW1111

how can I make this unit, with my old water cooling stuff? I've also got an old but really heavy copper socket 478 cooler. I also have an extra pwr supply to rig up.

Thanks

PS when I get it finished I'll take a pic and post it. The reef is doing well in the 85 degree water but the clown fish I want needs the temps just a tad bit lower to be really happy. The reef looks fantastic between my monitors and two old water cooling setups. I might be able to get a cheap 10 gallon to spread the heat but it's not what I want to do :(

Thanks again.
 
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Chunkylover763 said:
So...you want to mount that waterblock to the glass and remove the heat through the side of the aquarium? Sorry, but that waterblock is made to remove a lot of heat from a small area, not a little heat from a large area, in this application it would be useless. Unless I am totally missing how you are planning on doing this.


Thanks you for the expertise, thank God I didn't rip out one of my units just to see if it works. Metal is deadly to marine life so thats why I was hoping for an easy fix against the glass.

Thanks
 
Kbird said:
http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=CW1111

how can I make this unit, with my old water cooling stuff? I've also got an old but really heavy copper socket 478 cooler. I also have an extra pwr supply to rig up.

Thanks

PS when I get it finished I'll take a pic and post it. The reef is doing well in the 85 degree water but the clown fish I want needs the temps just a tad bit lower to be really happy. The reef looks fantastic between my monitors and two old water cooling setups. I might be able to get a cheap 10 gallon to spread the heat but it's not what I want to do :(

Thanks again.

First of all :welcome: fellow marine tank owner! I have a 22gal nano with a cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimp and several turbo snails and 30lbs of premium fiji lr. I am hoping to get a clown fish soon, it'd be nice to have a fish in my aquarium.

The product you are quoted (from the site that could be considered the "newegg" of marine tank owners) works off of having a peltier unit thermoelectrically cool the water with a heat sink cooling the other side of the pelt. What you would have to do is mount your cpu block to a pelt (you'd have to buy one) and then find a way to pump water to and from the pelt, unfortunately I don't see how this is possible unless you somehow found something really complex/creative.
 
[QUOTE
The product you are quoted (from the site that could be considered the "newegg" of marine tank owners) works off of having a peltier unit thermoelectrically cool the water with a heat sink cooling the other side of the pelt. What you would have to do is mount your cpu block to a pelt (you'd have to buy one) and then find a way to pump water to and from the pelt, unfortunately I don't see how this is possible unless you somehow found something really complex/creative.[/QUOTE]


i think cathar made a chiller along these lines. it was a pelt sandwiched between 2 waterblocks. one was a hot loop, the other was the cold. i rememer him showing off a little cooler that was the res and how the pelt/block (chiller) setup could turn it into a solid block of ice.
 
The product you are quoted (from the site that could be considered the "newegg" of marine tank owners) works off of having a peltier unit thermoelectrically cool the water with a heat sink cooling the other side of the pelt. What you would have to do is mount your cpu block to a pelt (you'd have to buy one) and then find a way to pump water to and from the pelt, unfortunately I don't see how this is possible unless you somehow found something really complex/creative.


i think cathar made a chiller along these lines. it was a pelt sandwiched between 2 waterblocks. one was a hot loop, the other was the cold. i rememer him showing off a little cooler that was the res and how the pelt/block (chiller) setup could turn it into a solid block of ice.
 
Kbird said:
Thanks you for the expertise, thank God I didn't rip out one of my units just to see if it works. Metal is deadly to marine life so thats why I was hoping for an easy fix against the glass.

Thanks

Are you using a Metal halide HID light or a Sodium light by any chance? If so, they make a cooling unit to vent the hot air away from the unit, or you can make one very easily

HFRadiantCoolingAction.jpg


http://homeharvest.com/climatecontrolexhaustfans.htm

In fact, you can make one of these yourself for a lot less, these really do work as I made one for my saltwater tank.

The easiest solution is to get a high heat, metal casing Sanyo Denki quiet fan, then buy this Flange for $9.99
ActiveAirOutputFlanges.jpg


Then rig it up to some dryer venting, and the fish tank will not get so hot. People also use these for Indoor growing of plants to keep the temperature under control.

hydrofarmflangeillus3.jpg
 
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