Rez and water chiller recommendations

  • Thread starter evu80
  • Start date
  • Tagged users None
C

Chillville

Premium Member
Supporter
223
16
BCrocker said:
I would like to mount in window or outside, although in this application I cannot do either. Need an indoor solution for this
Click to expand...

You can put a chillking indoors too with the same results as putting the eco plus chiller indoors. BTU is BTU no matter what chiller brand you use, so you will make the same amout of heat either way.

You can however build plenums and add ducting around the chiller exhaust and put an inline booster fan to blow in to the crawl space. This isn't the optimal condition for the chiller but it is doable. If you put a big enough fan on it you can actually increase the BTU a little, for 1.5 eco commercial use a 10" fan and with 2hp CK go with the 12" fan and ducting. Wit the eco you may not even need a plenum, if I remember correctly it has a round exit that you could probably just put a duct collar on, wall mount the fan, duct collar on the celing, attach ducting.

I saw that you were debating a 1hp or 1.5 hp. If you set up the system completely there is a an exact way to measure the BTU the system is absorbing making the selection of the chiller size accurate. The thread is in cooling system design and installation section. There is a formula and instructions on how to do it. Hope that helps!
 
evu80

evu80

191
28
Chillville said:
You can put a chillking indoors too with the same results as putting the eco plus chiller indoors. BTU is BTU no matter what chiller brand you use, so you will make the same amout of heat either way.

You can however build plenums and add ducting around the chiller exhaust and put an inline booster fan to blow in to the crawl space. This isn't the optimal condition for the chiller but it is doable. If you put a big enough fan on it you can actually increase the BTU a little, for 1.5 eco commercial use a 10" fan and with 2hp CK go with the 12" fan and ducting. Wit the eco you may not even need a plenum, if I remember correctly it has a round exit that you could probably just put a duct collar on, wall mount the fan, duct collar on the celing, attach ducting.

I saw that you were debating a 1hp or 1.5 hp. If you set up the system completely there is a an exact way to measure the BTU the system is absorbing making the selection of the chiller size accurate. The thread is in cooling system design and installation section. There is a formula and instructions on how to do it. Hope that helps!
Click to expand...

Chillville,

where have you been mang! thanks for the input bro. I was looking at the diminsons of the Eco 1HP chiller. It pretty much takes up whatever space I have left.

My bloom room is about 17 ft long and 13ft wide. I got NFT tubes atm which takes up 2/3 of it so I can fit my new UC in there. It's pretty much wall to wall and the tubes and UC are about 14 ft long leaving me 3 ft of space to work with.

So yeah I cant have a reservoir for the UC and my place dont have any windows so I hope the ECO would work the way you said it might work.

btw chillville

How do i go about running two UC systems off one chiller?

with the UC system I have now, the website says 1/2 horse is enough to cool to the proper temps.

I checked out my friends place and the price difference between a 1/2 and 1 horse chiller was around 350 bucks. I'm likely going to expand by getting another system down the road.

I'm planning to spend around 1100 on a chiller. Is there a better unit than the eco 1 HP chiller for that price?
 
S

sourkush91

139
18
Thanks for the info chillville... your the man.. Lovin the new chillking
 
C

Chillville

Premium Member
Supporter
223
16
evu80 said:
Chillville,

where have you been mang! thanks for the input bro. I was looking at the diminsons of the Eco 1HP chiller. It pretty much takes up whatever space I have left.

My bloom room is about 17 ft long and 13ft wide. I got NFT tubes atm which takes up 2/3 of it so I can fit my new UC in there. It's pretty much wall to wall and the tubes and UC are about 14 ft long leaving me 3 ft of space to work with.

So yeah I cant have a reservoir for the UC and my place dont have any windows so I hope the ECO would work the way you said it might work.

btw chillville

How do i go about running two UC systems off one chiller?

with the UC system I have now, the website says 1/2 horse is enough to cool to the proper temps.

I checked out my friends place and the price difference between a 1/2 and 1 horse chiller was around 350 bucks. I'm likely going to expand by getting another system down the road.

I'm planning to spend around 1100 on a chiller. Is there a better unit than the eco 1 HP chiller for that price?
Click to expand...

Hey evu, sounds like I tight fit. Will you have enough a/c to compensate for the heat the chiller puts off?

To chill multiple res with one chiller you can get a small reservoir, 30-50 gallons, coolcoils for each nutrient system, and a pump. You can make a small manifold to supply water to a coil in each system. Adjust the chiller temp as needed to keep the nutrient res where you want it. If you will insulate the systems you will see that the chiller runs much less, I would recommend that to anyone forced to run a chiller inside the garden.

Stay away from the eco plus aquarium chiller, I only recommend the eco plus commercial version...wasn't sure which one you were looking at.
 
C

Chillville

Premium Member
Supporter
223
16
sourkush91 said:
Thanks for the info chillville... your the man.. Lovin the new chillking
Click to expand...


I'm lovin the chillking myself too, I'm running a 4 ton vertical high efficiency unit. It's ducted out the roof and it still kicks ass :)
 
gimp73

gimp73

80
8
I am dealing with the same thing. I have a 16db 13 and a 24db 13. I just installed a 2hp chiller on a 55 gal res with a cool coil in each epicenter and it did nothing. The res stays and the temp but one coil in each has no effect. I did not see until I bought them that one coil is good for up 100g. Should I add 3 more cool coils or cool my top off res and hook that up to both epicenters? Both systems would them be sharing the same water.
 
BCrocker

BCrocker

428
28
Chillville said:
You can put a chillking indoors too with the same results as putting the eco plus chiller indoors. BTU is BTU no matter what chiller brand you use, so you will make the same amout of heat either way.

You can however build plenums and add ducting around the chiller exhaust and put an inline booster fan to blow in to the crawl space. This isn't the optimal condition for the chiller but it is doable. If you put a big enough fan on it you can actually increase the BTU a little, for 1.5 eco commercial use a 10" fan and with 2hp CK go with the 12" fan and ducting. Wit the eco you may not even need a plenum, if I remember correctly it has a round exit that you could probably just put a duct collar on, wall mount the fan, duct collar on the celing, attach ducting.

I saw that you were debating a 1hp or 1.5 hp. If you set up the system completely there is a an exact way to measure the BTU the system is absorbing making the selection of the chiller size accurate. The thread is in cooling system design and installation section. There is a formula and instructions on how to do it. Hope that helps!
Click to expand...


Awesome info here. Do window units exhaust out the window or suck air from outside in?

And if I use a Vortec 10" fan, will that be too much cfm? What type of fan do you recommend?
 
S

sourkush91

139
18
I will measure the exact dimentions tomorrow and post them... the chill king does put off a good amount of heat pretty much just like a window ac unit... doesnt take a huge window i got super lucky and barely had to seal around the chiller it fit pretty snug
 
C

Chillville

Premium Member
Supporter
223
16
gimp73 said:
I am dealing with the same thing. I have a 16db 13 and a 24db 13. I just installed a 2hp chiller on a 55 gal res with a cool coil in each epicenter and it did nothing. The res stays and the temp but one coil in each has no effect. I did not see until I bought them that one coil is good for up 100g. Should I add 3 more cool coils or cool my top off res and hook that up to both epicenters? Both systems would them be sharing the same water.
Click to expand...

Ok this should be easy to fix, the solution might have a new answer. I have to ask lots of questions to get to the bottom of this.

1. What chiller are you using?
2. What is the recommended flow rate of the chiller? (CK 2hp is 5gpm min)
3. What is the current flow rate of the chiller (pull out chiller return line and measure by putting it in a milk jug and time how long it takes to fill.
4. What pump are you using, possibly your problem.
5. How is your water distribution manifold made? Size of tubing etc?
6. What is the chiller temp set too?
7. What is your room temp stay at while lights are on?
8. What is the current UC water temp?
9. Is your UC system insulated?
10. What is flow rate of the coolcoil lines? Test the same as chiller flow rate.
11. Can you post pics of the cooling setup?

The original Coolcoils are good for 2,500 BTU, the new ones are good for 3,500 BTU. The volume of water really doesn't matter as long as it doesn't have more than a 2,500/3,500 BTU of heat. The 2 hp chiller should be more than enough so no worries there. Lets assume that you coils are getting enough flow then my suggestion would be to insulate the system, this will make a drastic difference. Insulating the system will stop it from absorbing heat from the room which is the biggest source of heat raising your water temperature.

BTW you can special order larger coils from hydro innovations if you don't want to insulate the system. They don't advertise it but I've ordered them for some of my customers.
 
C

Chillville

Premium Member
Supporter
223
16
BCrocker said:
Awesome info here. Do window units exhaust out the window or suck air from outside in?

And if I use a Vortec 10" fan, will that be too much cfm? What type of fan do you recommend?
Click to expand...

Window a/c units have a seal in between the back and front. So in other words the air inside and the air outside do not mix.

A 10" fan should be plenty for the eco plus commercial unit, not a problem with too much, only a problem with not enough.
 
C

Chillville

Premium Member
Supporter
223
16
sourkush91 said:
I will measure the exact dimentions tomorrow and post them... the chill king does put off a good amount of heat pretty much just like a window ac unit... doesnt take a huge window i got super lucky and barely had to seal around the chiller it fit pretty snug
Click to expand...

Chillking 2 hp measurements? 27" wide, 26" deep, 19" tall

The Chillking (or any chiller) will only put out the heat that is absorbed from the water, if there was no heat in the water then there would be no heat coming out of the chiller. In other words if you are absorbing 10k BTU of heat you will have 10k BTU of heat PLUS the mechanical heat created to cool.
 
gimp73

gimp73

80
8
Chillville said:
Ok this should be easy to fix, the solution might have a new answer. I have to ask lots of questions to get to the bottom of this.

1. What chiller are you using?
2. What is the recommended flow rate of the chiller? (CK 2hp is 5gpm min)
3. What is the current flow rate of the chiller (pull out chiller return line and measure by putting it in a milk jug and time how long it takes to fill.
4. What pump are you using, possibly your problem.
5. How is your water distribution manifold made? Size of tubing etc?
6. What is the chiller temp set too?
7. What is your room temp stay at while lights are on?
8. What is the current UC water temp?
9. Is your UC system insulated?
10. What is flow rate of the coolcoil lines? Test the same as chiller flow rate.
11. Can you post pics of the cooling setup?

The original Coolcoils are good for 2,500 BTU, the new ones are good for 3,500 BTU. The volume of water really doesn't matter as long as it doesn't have more than a 2,500/3,500 BTU of heat. The 2 hp chiller should be more than enough so no worries there. Lets assume that you coils are getting enough flow then my suggestion would be to insulate the system, this will make a drastic difference. Insulating the system will stop it from absorbing heat from the room which is the biggest source of heat raising your water temperature.

BTW you can special order larger coils from hydro innovations if you don't want to insulate the system. They don't advertise it but I've ordered them for some of my customers.
Click to expand...


Here are the specs on the chiller. 2 HP Titanium Aquarium Chiller
- 2 hp aquarium chiller
- Digital Display
- Fully automatic with built in thermostat (no minimum temperature)
- 220v 50/60hz !!!
- Anti-corrosive 100% titanium heat exchanger for saltwater use
- PANASONIC compressor!
- Cools up to 2000 gallons
- Recommended flow rate 1400-2500 gph
- Very reliable unit, and easy to install
- 1 year warranty

I have a pondmaster 2400gph on my chiller. I set the chiller at 68 at first then I set it to 59. The chiller did keep the res at those temps. Both uc's temps were 76 before the chiller was on and after hours it did not change any. I did not make a manifold i just put 4 bulkheads on the res. I just used pumps I had on hand for the coils. I put a 250 mag on the 16 site coil and a 500 for the 24 site. I have the pumps pulling water through the coils the same way the epicenters pumps are set up. The room temp is 78 to 80. I have the hoodies on all the sites but that is it, no insulation. I can get a picture later.
Thanks for the help.
 
gimp73

gimp73

80
8
Here is a couple of pics. The heater you see by the res in not hooked up. It is a mess because I am still trying to get it working right. The res you see does stay cold. I am going to wrap it to night anyway. I am taking the temps from last sites and it is 76. The other pic is of half of the db 16. The plants have only been in for a few days.
 
042
047
gimp73

gimp73

80
8
ok I am going to make room and move the chiller out of this room and run pipes. I have a 4 foot marine cooler. Would that work better then the barrel for a res?
 
BCrocker

BCrocker

428
28
gimp73 said:
ok I am going to make room and move the chiller out of this room and run pipes. I have a 4 foot marine cooler. Would that work better then the barrel for a res?
Click to expand...

Is the chiller in the same room as your lights/plants?
 
gimp73

gimp73

80
8
Yes but I have not had all the lights on and the room is fresh air cooled so it did not get to hot. I did not have room for it yet and the plants in the ez-cloner were to big and had to get planted before I made room for it.
 
C

Chillville

Premium Member
Supporter
223
16
Well it looks like its going to be a very nice setup when you get everything dialed in. I think that its going to be flow rate on the coils, those pumps are pretty small considering how far they need to pump and the resistance that the tubing creates. Take out the return lines for the coils from the cooling res and measure the GPM of each, like I mentioned above just fill up a 1 gallon milk jug and time it. I'm pretty sure this is most of your problem. Those covers will help some but I wouldn't consider them insulation. What they are doing though is blocking the light from hitting the bucket, causing to to absorb more heat. You water temp set at 59 is going to be about right once you dial everything in. I'm not saying that you won't need a bigger coil in a system that size but lets get the setup that you have running optimally first to see.

The rest of the system looks solid, once you move the chiller. Personally I would have used one pump for the chiller and all the coils but what you have done will work. The more holes that you put in the reservoir the more likely you will eventually have a leak. There are water heater drain pans for $20 that you can put underneath it in case a leak would be a disaster.
 
gimp73

gimp73

80
8
I would like to run just one pump but could not find one. They were all way to big so I had to go with mag pumps. What pump and size do you think would be best for this? What would be the best way to plum it with only one pump?
Thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Top Bottom