Time to buy a chiller for mpb - Favorites?

[Purkle]

^ Very true it seems that a bigger unit is always better! So we figure a 1/2hp for every 10 girls?

 

[easypleasie]

You guys might wanna factor in how much water you need to cool and not so much how many plants. Some setups will have more water from bigger tubs, res's... also depends on how deep your netpots or buckets are. Personally, i'd use a 1/2 hp per 5 plants...1 hp for 10. Bigger is better when it comes to chillers. You can never have too much chilli'ing power :) You can get by with smaller units but they're working harder than they need to.

 

[bakershredhead]

Yup what easy said, I have a 1hp for about 150 gl water. It's obviously not the best but the really nice ones are 2-3 grand. So go bigger for sure.

 

[Apache69]

I was going to use one of the home depot 27 gallon tubs as my reservoir having only 3 plants. I figure a total of aprox 60 gallons total for a 1/4 hp chiller.

 

[noone88]

The amount of water in the system is secondary to the wattage that you're running.

As I've stated in other posts, all the circulating water acts like a heat exchange and the cold water sucks up heat while it passes through all the various tubing and mini-resses.

If you want good control over your temps (ie very little delta between controller res and your mini res and also very little temperature delta while your lights are on, go with 5k watts = 0.5hp chiller)

What helps is if you cover all the black surfaces with foil tape (mini resses, black pvc pipe). This is practical with a few tubs, but a pain in the ass for us running 10-15k rooms since we'd rather just buy bigger chillers heh.

 

[noone88]

Lastly, when it came to the brand of chiller, I ultimately stuck with Ecoplus (sunlight supply) or active aqua (hydrofarm). They have some many retailers in California ie hydro stores so if you have any problems, to get it fixed/replaced would be a few days.

When you start buying some of these brands online without a huge distribution chain, if you ever have problems with it, you'll be without a chiller for a while.

Most of the brand-name chillers are good quality and the titanium is a must. RO water loves to pull metal particles into solution.

 

[Casual]

I wound up needing a chiller for my 12 BioBucket setup... Money is tight... Hopped on Craigslist and found the DBE-200 like you linked below for $300.
Hauled ass over and picked it up. I'm running 70 gallons in an uninsulated reservoir and uninsulated buckets and it keeps the water between 68.0-68.8 all the time without breaking a sweat. Very nice unit, with rave reviews from other users.
Good call TF... nice unit!

Caz

Sounds like a good price. It will probably work well.
If you want something that could work a bit better, and last longer, check this out:

http://www.marinedepot.com/JBJ_Arct...JBJ_Lighting-JB1111-FICHINQCBC-JB1115-vi.html

Thanks to BL.:icon_cookie:

 

[TrichromeFan]

Thanks Cas
That sounds like you got sweet deal! :rauch08: