hypo

I didn't want to have to buy a watechiller... I happen to have a small fridge in my garage. I'm gonna hook it up for my 70 gallon reservoir for the summer.

Anyone else have experience here?

Thanks.

Underarock

so the plan is to pump chilled air into the water in the res?

stick the whole air pump in the fridge?
heat normally has to go somewhere
in this case...it would be absorbed by the cold air
you're gonna need a lot of bubbles

I'd be interested to know what kind of drop you get in the res

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Turtle Hermit

Ok, pretty high here so bear with me....

Your idea got me thinking. You could take a length of copper tubing and coil it a few times, being careful not to crimp it. You end up with something similar to a wort-chiller used in homebrewing. Drill 2 holes in top (or side or whatever) of mini-fridge to line up with the 2 ends of your coil. Fit the coil in place and seal it up with an assload of silicone caulk. Now connect a water pump to one end of the coil using tubing & run tubing from the other end of the coil back to the res. Place the pump in your res & it should start circulating water through the now cool coil and back into your res. If you ran the return line back higher than the water level of the res it could also help aerate the solution from the waterfall effect. You could control temps using the thermostat in the mini-fridge.

Seems like a pretty cheap alternative to a res cooler for anyone with a mini-fridge sitting around and a little time. Or maybe I'm just stoned.

Futuregrower

Sounds to me like you're looking at a small-size frig, not one of those mini-dorm fridges right?

Well I know a guy, likes beer more than oxygen or sex, he put 2 kegs in a fridge, and ran the hoses out the door. He was careful to leave extra hose betwixt keg and door, so he could open it and disconnect hose when needed. Seems to me you could put the whole res. in the fridge and just cut a hole(s) in the side or door of fridge for hoses and such. Just remember to foam those holes with something like great stuff or patch with Styrofoam, as the cold will come out otherwise. (duh lol)

So, just throw the whole reservoir into the fridge and let 'er rip. Maybe pull hoses out the back, just be careful of the coils, that way no-one sees hoses coming out?

Edit: I know you talked of putting just the air pump there, but the pump will throw off heat, making the fridge work harder. once you get 70 gals. of water chilled, it has a hell of a thermal mass- shouldn't heat back up again anytime soon.

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hydrolized

Future and Turtle got it....if the res fits in the fridge, cut 2 holes, one for a feed and one for a return line and pump out to your system...if it doesnt fit, buy some 1/2" flexible copper at Home DePot and make a few 1' diameter coils in the fridge and pump through that...both of those methods will work MUCH better than pumping cold air through your system, mostly because the pump will heat up the air before it gets to the stones.

Luke Highwalker

your only hope using a fridge as a res chiller is to have a res in teh fridge that is large enough, and the pump slow enough that the hot water being added to the res does not change its temp.

fridge's KEEP things cool, they arent designed for rapid cooling. that would be a blast freezer.

fridge is only about 750 btu. that is not shit.

if you put 20 gallons of 80 degree water in a fridge, it will take it a solid day to pull it down in tempurature.

by the time you buy a fridge, and all the shit to rig it up you could have got an actual chiller that takes up 1/3rd the space of a mini fridge, works 300% better and costs less to operate.

lastly, by continually adding warm water to the fridge cooler, the compressor will operate much longer cycle and much more frequently than it was ever designed. so after about a week of working itself to death your fridge contraption will have a burned up compressor and be another big broke piece of shit.

wort chillers dont pull that much heat, there coil is extremely non efficient. you would be better just pumping in and out of a 5 gallon bucket full of nutes in the fridge. water holds more heat and absorbs it much faster than copper ever will.

at least once a month this topic comes up. it doesnt work, its costly....just buy a chiller.

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