[Neco]

Ok so me and my bro were talking..


about fish tanks and using one as a reservoir - well.. He says it will be great and help keep the water cool - "why do you think they have heaters ? those things get cold" and I'm like..


"uh y ea...I guess so. "


I'm convinced it would help a little bit at least... so I figure, why not find something small tank thats a galon or two or five or something, and use it as a reservoir to see... Problem is

Will something that small work ? or should I use at least a 10 gallon.

and Would it be easy to fasion a air/water tight lid for this sucker ?

I don't care for the idea of dying from water wetter exposer.. (lol ?) .. god knows it almost knocked my out last time I changed my water.


lastly

Will this even "work" how I am thinking ? I mean it makes sense to me at least - colder water... colder temps or at least more stable temps.


Also he threw around the idea of not needing a radiator - or submerging the radiator in a fish tank full of water... I however am not convinced either of those methods can withstand and continuosly dissipate the heatload of my CPU.. (It's only a Duron O/C'ed to 933 but still......)


Debunk me or tell me "cool this works" or something !!

[Jon]

Fish tanks have heaters to help keep a constant temperature...not to keep it from getting too cold for the fish. Room temperature sometimes fluctuates too much to a fish's liking, therefore heaters are placed into the tank to keep a constant water temperature. Otherwise, that water will not get any colder than room temperature.

As far as the rest of your plan goes, good luck because I have no idea when it comes to watercooling. Just wanted to clear up the fish tank part for you so you don't start building upon bad advice (no offence, of course).

[Holst]

If your keeping the fish in then remember to fit a filter to the pump inlett

It should work ok as a reservoir.
You might even get away without a radiator is you has a fan gently blowing onto the waters surface allowing some evaporation.

Making a air tight lid would keep the heat in more so you would probably need a radiator then.

If you allready have the tank give it a try. Just bung two hoses into it and it will work.
if your temperatures are rubbish then fit a radiator.

A duron isnt too hard to cool so I see no obvious reason it wouldnt work.

Putting the radiator in a tank of water wouldnt work, you would be better off using the tank as a big reservoir.

[res0r9lm]

Originally posted by Neco



Ok so me and my bro were talking..


about fish tanks and using one as a reservoir - well.. He says it will be great and help keep the water cool - "why do you think they have heaters ? those things get cold" and I'm like..


"uh y ea...I guess so. "


I'm convinced it would help a little bit at least... so I figure, why not find something small tank thats a galon or two or five or something, and use it as a reservoir to see... Problem is

Will something that small work ? or should I use at least a 10 gallon.

and Would it be easy to fasion a air/water tight lid for this sucker ?

I don't care for the idea of dying from water wetter exposer.. (lol ?) .. god knows it almost knocked my out last time I changed my water.


lastly

Will this even "work" how I am thinking ? I mean it makes sense to me at least - colder water... colder temps or at least more stable temps.


Also he threw around the idea of not needing a radiator - or submerging the radiator in a fish tank full of water... I however am not convinced either of those methods can withstand and continuosly dissipate the heatload of my CPU.. (It's only a Duron O/C'ed to 933 but still......)


Debunk me or tell me "cool this works" or something !!

as long as it's not left on all the time should work. had a 5 gallon bucket as resivor for duron 950 took 24hrs till the water started get hot but that was with 120w peltier

[It_The_Cow]

Originally posted by res0r9lm
...had a 5 gallon bucket as resivor for duron 950 took 24hrs till the water started get hot but that was with 120w peltier

Yep. Once it gets warm/hot, it'll take a while to cool it back down. Even with a fan blowing on the water, you'll need a lot of exposed surface area for it to cool effectively. I'm not sure of the science behind it, but you just do . If you had a radiator, the water would still slowly heat up. I'd recommend putting a chunk of ice in it every now and then if you try this route

[Warlord2]

I dont think it would work with any high end Tbird or even XP but a duron should work without a radiator

throwing in some ICE should work with a Tbird and XP and should ever give you good temp

[Christoph]

Talk to bender. He's doing the exact same thing and already has it built.

[Neco]

Thank for the responses..


I just have one or two more questions.


Will putting ice in the water cause condensation ? I do not want to do anything that will as I am ill-euiped and ill-experienced to deal with it.


and also I will always use a radiator in my rig no question about that, and my concern with being enough to cool a Duron was not really because of the Duron but when thew new AMD's with lower heat output come out I plan to finally upgrade my CPU/mobo again, so I was trying to consider the future.


I'll check out that other thread, thanks guys.

[Boilerhead]

I think what you would like to do would work just fine, but as previously mentioned, you would want to slap some ice in there or do a water change if you want to run it 24/7.

Bigger is better for an aquarium cooler/bong. The more water you have the lower your "maintenance" interval will be. I'd say a 5-1/2 gallon tank would be the minimum worth trying and a really good one would be a "20 Long" which is 30"x12x12, it has a larger amount of surface area than a 20 high or 10 and 15g models. Even better would be a 30 breeder. My 20 long cost under $30 new last year.

Tam and I keep a lot of fish. We have 15 tanks running atm, ranging from 2-1/2 to 120g in size and another 5 which aren't in use.

I wouldn't keep fish in anything used to cool a computer unless there was no copper involved and I planned on doing the equivalent of a 100% water change weekly. Not even goldfish unless I didn't care if they died or not.

Goldfish would be unhappy at over 25c and most tropical fish would not do that well at under 24c. Zebra Danio's would probably be the best bet, they've done well for us at 20 to 30c for us.

The best way to keep fish in an aquarium cooler and have them live woudl probably be to run an aluminum radiator submerged in a tank larger than 15 gallons which had an alarm if it went over 30c. Some cichlids don't mind higher temps and can do ok up to about 34c, but they wouldn't be happy with wild temp fluctuations of 4 to 5c in short periods of time. You'll also have to use some sort of filtration and air systems for the tank water, if you are going to keep fish, you gotta at least give them a chance to survive.

If you just want to screw around you can get 10g "Leader" tanks for under $10, often over the counter from pet stores.

Tam and I have an aquarium site at http://Aquarium.bluemoon.net which has all sorts of useful info for anyone who wants to keep fish.

The aquariums are good for cooling, but I'd keep fish out of the equation. Get some plastic fish instead

As to condensation from ice in the water, don't worry about it, ain't gonna happen!

Henry

[JetMech]

Let me through another question into the mix. How abbout using the aquarium in place of the radiator fan. Just submerge the radiator into the tank (10 gal) and occasionally add ice. How much would that effect cooling.

[phiber]

Originally posted by IdeaMagnate
Talk to bender. He's doing the exact same thing and already has it built.

its not bender who is doing it i am!!!


so far its working out great
my temps are steady.... the water is never warm
the only downside is that the water evaporates pretty fast....so far estimations are at about 2 gallons/week

[phiber]

Originally posted by Boilerhead
I think what you would like to do would work just fine, but as previously mentioned, you would want to slap some ice in there or do a water change if you want to run it 24/7.

Bigger is better for an aquarium cooler/bong. The more water you have the lower your "maintenance" interval will be. I'd say a 5-1/2 gallon tank would be the minimum worth trying and a really good one would be a "20 Long" which is 30"x12x12, it has a larger amount of surface area than a 20 high or 10 and 15g models. Even better would be a 30 breeder. My 20 long cost under $30 new last year.

Tam and I keep a lot of fish. We have 15 tanks running atm, ranging from 2-1/2 to 120g in size and another 5 which aren't in use.

I wouldn't keep fish in anything used to cool a computer unless there was no copper involved and I planned on doing the equivalent of a 100% water change weekly. Not even goldfish unless I didn't care if they died or not.

Goldfish would be unhappy at over 25c and most tropical fish would not do that well at under 24c. Zebra Danio's would probably be the best bet, they've done well for us at 20 to 30c for us.

The best way to keep fish in an aquarium cooler and have them live woudl probably be to run an aluminum radiator submerged in a tank larger than 15 gallons which had an alarm if it went over 30c. Some cichlids don't mind higher temps and can do ok up to about 34c, but they wouldn't be happy with wild temp fluctuations of 4 to 5c in short periods of time. You'll also have to use some sort of filtration and air systems for the tank water, if you are going to keep fish, you gotta at least give them a chance to survive.

If you just want to screw around you can get 10g "Leader" tanks for under $10, often over the counter from pet stores.

Tam and I have an aquarium site at http://Aquarium.bluemoon.net which has all sorts of useful info for anyone who wants to keep fish.

The aquariums are good for cooling, but I'd keep fish out of the equation. Get some plastic fish instead

As to condensation from ice in the water, don't worry about it, ain't gonna happen!

Henry

i have a question.......since my fish tank is left open......i am worried about baterial growth in the water what do you think i should put in it?

[Boilerhead]

Probably add a dash of plain laundry bleach every so often. That'll keep it free of little critters and at higher doses it'll smell laundry fresh.

It doesn't take much chlorine to keep the bacteria down and it's quite cheap for the generic brands.

Henry

[Neco]

Well

given my current sitaution (see my post on my dead Duron)

I won't be doing this anytime soon... ( I had a fishtank cleaned and alls etup and the system was ready to go with it just over half full and my radiator on the system still)


But some questions on bacterial prevention and stuff..


I won't be running any fish in there or anything (lol) but is it safe to put bleach /detergent in there ???

I also have an aluminum radiator but will prolly use a copper waterblock when I get back into water cooling... water wetter will pretty much kill me from the fumes in an open system - is there any agent I can add to an open system to prevent growth/corrosion/metal interactions - that won't smell and won't kill me ?



Also what do yuo think of this idea ?

Someone suggest just pubmersing the radiator in a 10 gal tank - well what if I did that, had a regular res pump and only the radiator was being cooled by the tank - and added a water chiller to the tank (I saw one in a petstore I think??) Would that keep my temps pretty cold in the long run ??

It would also mean I would have to change water less I suppose, but I am asuuming I would still have to add some anti-bacterials tuff/corrosion stuff to keep the radiator from rustins / and the fins from becomming gunked up ?


and of course there is the overall effectiveness factor as well

[Boilerhead]

I wouldn't put anything in there which tends to foam up such as dish detergent. Not only could foam make a mess, it won't cool anything either. A very small amount of dish detergent could be beneficial as it acts as a basic water wetter, but you wouldn't want enough of it in the system to cause any suds.

A periodic light dose of plain laundry bleach should keep the bacteria at bay, but there are probably longer lasting anti-bacterial products which would be safe for a computer cooling system.

Chlorine is a gas and escapes into the air as soon as it is exposed to it. That's why tap water is safe to use for fish after it has been standing in an aquarium for 24 hours. An ounce of chlorine laundry bleach would last somewhat longer as the concentration of chlorine would be much higher and take longer to dissipate. Of course with an open aquarium your computer room would end up smelling like a swimming pool!

If you don't mind a blue color and don't mind the silicone in the aquarium getting slightly stained then the aquarium medication known as Methylene Blue would be the stuff to use. It's anti-bacterial and doesn't dissappear quickly like chlorine. It's available on the net or at many local fish stores(LFS in the AQ world). You could probably go several months between booster doses. The dosage is small so you don't have to worry about rubber O-ring, impeller or seal deterioration which can be a concern with alcohol.

I wouldn't use any ammonia either, not only does it stink, but nitrosomonas bacteria will appear and will thrive in that and convert it to ammonium nitrite which will attract nitrobacter bacteria to convert that into ammonium nitrate (note the I and A difference) which is actually called the aquarium "Nitrogen Cycle" and needed to keep raw ammonia and nitrite levels negligible for fish to stay healthy. I have actually artificially cycled an aquarium with nothing but water in it using plain ammonia, but that's another subject in itself.

If you have an aluminum radiator it won't rust. Just keep salt away from it :P

Submerging the radiator would work fairly well, even better if there was something in the tank to keep the water in motion like a cheap aquarium filter. I think corrosion shouldn't be a big problem with sterilized tap water, distilled water would be best, but that could cost $10 a month to combat evaporation. The extent that your tap water would attack the radiator would be somewhat dependant on what all is in your tap water. It varies from municipality to municipality and from season to season depending on what is added by the water authority. I imagine that even in the nastiest local tap water an aluminum rad would provide many years of good service.

Aquarium chillers are very expensive and not very powerful. A $600 aquarium chiller will generally lower a 10 gallon tank 10 degrees F from ambient. That's not a lot of bang for the buck. You'd probably do just as well submerging the freezer plate from an $80 cube fridge. $600 for 3 degrees C in tank temp isn't so great and you'd be lucky to get half that inside the rad. 10lb bags of ice would probably be more effective!

Hope this all helps a little,

Henry