DIY Chiller

[timebomb]

Deborah and Robert,

Nid, my friend in Thailand gave me my first Downoi. Nid's a very special girl. She can't speak English but her boyfriend, NongOil does. Nid's article about the Downoi (written in Thai) appeared in Nonn's AQUA magazine and is reproduced in English here in this forum.

Loh K L

[whuntley]

Robert's guess that the Downois is not a moss but an Aponogeton, is a good one, I suspect.

That could explain the quick meltdown in shipping, as that's not typical of the few mosses I know. It looks like an Apo, particularly in the straight down shot.

I certainly hope the shipping problems can be solved, for it would be a huge improvement (have an impact? :wink on the aquatic gardening scene here.

Wright

PS. On Sat. I'm driving to Lancaster, 200 miles south toward LA to pick up an entire fishroom full of tanks from a hobbyist who is getting out of fish. They will fill the pickup truck as there are:

10 - 5 gallon tanks
40 - 10 gallon tanks
12 - 20 gallon high acrylic tanks.
2 - 20 gallon long tanks
2 - 40 gallon acylic tanks
16 - 1.5G "Critter Keeper" plastic tanks

You can imagine my problem when I mention that I live in a rented mobile home. Where do I put them? Hope Bill gets a good trade on some of those lovely mosses. I'm going to really need them!

[A.Rashid]

The Christmas Moss

If I may add.. from the pix shown the apisto you have KL, is not a borelli but looks to like a viejita, I could be wrong as the pix shown is showing the top part of the apisto.

Too cold a temperature wont induce spawning but if they are comfortable enough they will give you some frys, with apistos never expect the unexpected. Hope they spawn for you. Good luck.

[stormhawk]

If I recall correctly the downoi should be called Dao Noi in their native language. Its a Potamogeton species but I forgot the actual name that Nonn or one of the Thai hobbyists onced mentioned in a previous thread regarding this plant. KL, I believe the name is in one of the magazines that Nonn gave you.

Your apisto, if it was that one-eyed one you mentioned, should be Apistogramma viejita if I recalled Azmi saying that was what he sold to you back then.

[Piscesgirl]

Downoi is Pogostemon Helferi per my understanding. I actually have a nice little bunch myself hehe. I want mine to stay low and be a foreground plant.

Here is a linked picture of the tank. Please forgive me if it doesn't work -- I know RonWill gave me a nice place for my pictures, but I want to see if a link from photobucket will work (Imagestation apparently was not killies.com friendly).





KL -- I did read that article about Downoi here and that made me 'obsessed' with Downoi, finally getting some in March of this year, and another couple in April of this year. That was my birthday present to myself (March).

[stormhawk]

Sorry my mistake. Just re-read the article and came across the scientific name (Pogostemon helferi).

Yes its a nice little plant but it goes for quite a sum locally as well.

[tayhonglee]

Hi guys,
Im Henry Tay. I hail from the beuatiful land of St George's Rd I actually own a reef tank, and I have to admit I don't know the first thing about killies.
But I saw your discussion about DIYing a chiller and I just had to comment a little.
I think a bar fridge would have more success as compared to the freezer that Mr Loh is using, even though a bar fridge has less btu.
The pictures of the freezer/chiller that were posted had lots of ice in them. I don't know why but ice in the freezer makes it a lot less cooler than it should or could be.
I learn that from experience as Im a second hand dealer, and I come across lots of lousy old fridges with no built in heater (no auto defroster).As frost builts up, the freezer starts to get warmer. For example, frozen ice cream starts to melt.
So I realised no frost is good.
Also, bar fridges have this metal plate in their freezer compartment that Mr Loh called the thermal plate. I suppose that the plate has little tubes built in that allows the compressed coolant to expand.
So this plate is very very cold.
If you can submerge this plate in the small water tank, I think the water would get cold very fast. The air in the rest of the bar fridge might be not even be cool, but then it wouldn't be your concern. I don't know what a powerhead can do though.
After reading your posts, Im also inspired to DIY a chiller for my tank. I will record and take pictures of the process and results and post it here as well.
Great site!
Henry

[timebomb]

Hi guys,
Im Henry Tay. I hail from the beuatiful land of St George's Rd I actually own a reef tank, and I have to admit I don't know the first thing about killies.

Welcome to the forum, Henry. I'm really glad you joined in the discussion.

I only had ice when I was using a chiller tank. Now that I'm using a plastic bag to hold the water, there's no ice in the freezer anymore. I'm not sure if the thermal plate in a mini bar fridge can do more than a freezer but my guess is it can't. Let's look at it this way. Suppose I fill up my freezer with water and not run the filter, wouldn't the water become ice eventually? It would be difficult to do the same with a mini bar fridge but let's say we fill up the whole fridge with water, would it turn into ice too? Impossible, right? Only the ice-making compartment will turn into ice; the rest of water in the fridge will remain as water.

So how can a freezer be less efficient than a mini bar fridge?

By the way, Henry, I'm just walking distance from where you live. I'm at Towner Road. You're welcomed to pop over to see the DIY chiller. Just give me a tinkle before you come. My number is 63921969.

Loh K L

[FC]

Henry,

Welcome here.

As frost builts up, the freezer starts to get warmer.

We shared the same thoughts, I had mentioned similar in earlier post. Such fridge (not like non-froze type) need routine de-ice for the fridge to work effectively. However, for KL's latest modification, this problem had been solved. The only issue left is the fridge power which is a tack too low.

If you can submerge this plate in the small water tank, I think the water would get cold very fast.

This would be the ultimate solution. I thought of this too. However, this need modification on the gas tubing to bring down this thermal plate evaporator. It has to be done by workshop and then re-fill with gas.

[tayhonglee]

Hi again,

Thanks for the warm welcome guys.Made me feel right at home :P

Im going to sacrifice one of my mini fridge and see how my DIY chiller works out.

Good thing I was a mechanic during my army daze, so Im a little familiar with hydraulics. I plan to lower the thermal plate with copper pipings and elbows so that it could fit into a small container of water.

No problems with refilling the fridge with coolant. I have a regular guy who service aircon and fridges in my shop.

I will let you guys know how things turn out. Only thing Im worried about is the tank water coming into contact with the copper tubes. I read that corals are quite sensitive to copper.

Take care of your fishies!
Henry

ps. did you ever visit Reborn? Its a marine lfs at Lavender. Real close to Towner and St Georges

[timebomb]

Im going to sacrifice one of my mini fridge and see how my DIY chiller works out.

That will be great, Henry. We need a guinea pig to see if a mini bar fridge works just as well or better than a freezer. If you need help, just holler. I can come over and photograph the process if you don't already have a digital camera.

Good luck and keep us posted.

As for Reborn, I was there a couple of months ago but they specialise in marine fish. Killifish and aquatic plant hobbyists don't have much to look at in that shop. The marine fish are nice though but somehow or other, I have never taken a fancy to them.

Loh K L

[timebomb]

Hi, fellas,

I bought the insulation foam today and will be wrapping the DIY chiller/freezer hoses with them later.



I don't believe the insulation foam will help to lower the temperature by very much but hey, anything for another degree . I got something else, however, that may help a lot. Look what I bought:



It's a coil of copper tubing, 50 feet in length. Compared to the 50 metre (164 feet) PVC hose I'm using now, this is very short. But the conductivity should be a lot better. I've been warned that my shrimps may die from copper poisoning but hey, I'm a skeptic, remember? But seriously, we won't know for sure until we try. I'll be monitoring the copper levels. I wanted to buy a copper test kit on my way home just now but the shop I stopped at wanted $22 for the kit. That's a bit high for a test kit considering I paid only $25 for the copper tubing. I'll see if I can find a cheaper copper test kit later.

In the meantime, can I have your opinions, please.

By the way, I actually wanted alumiunium tubing but I went to several alumiunium shops and they all say there's no such tubing. The ones they showed me are either very hard (long straight pipes) or very soft (like alumiunium foil).

Loh K L

[whuntley]

Hi KL,

I suspect the amount of copper you get will depend a lot on pH. The lower the pH the more copper, as I recall. Don't miss any water changes and keep pH above 7 and it might never show much. [OTOH I could be all wet and it could be lethal. ]

We used to kill velvet o/e by just dropping one copper US penny in a tank. It doesn't take much.

I wonder how hard it would be to paint the inside of the copper pipe with a thin coat of epoxy paint?

There really is aluminum tubing, about as stiff as your copper tubing. I have seen it many times, but haven't tried to buy it lately. Won't work with solder fittings, of course, but works fine with compression/flare fittings. It is a soft alloy (SO grade, as I recall). Check out the web sites of the big aluminum makers, like Alcoa or Reynolds for local distributors?

Wright

[timebomb]

Oh yes, Wright. Someone told me too that acidic water will react with copper. The thing he wasn't sure about is how lethal the reaction will be. He suspects though that it may help to kill off the algae in my tank .

I'll see if I can get my hands on some alumiunium tubing later but in the meantime, let's see how good the copper tubing is. The coil I bought had a diameter that was too large for my freezer so I had to uncoiled it and rolled it up into smaller circles. I straightened out the coil and rolled it up again using a pail. My wife and maid helped and we had quite a bit of fun uncoiling and coiling the copper tubing. Here are some pictures:





I took out the 50 metre long PVC hose from the chiller and replaced it with the copper tubing.



Actually, I found out this afternoon when shopping around that the 50 metre long hose isn't really PVC. It's, as Wright have said earlier, Vinyl. PVC, according to the guys at the hardware shops is very hard and it comes it long straight pipes. Anyway, I dumped the PVC hose into the dustbin. There were many kinks along the hose and it was hell trying to coil it up.

I also wrapped all the filter hoses with the insulation foam. Here's a pic:



There's a great improvement in the water flow which means the time the water stays in the chiller is now shorter. Coupled with a shorter copper tubing, I don't know how this will affect the temperature. But if I don't get 22 degrees tomorrow, I don't know what else I can do to improve the system.

I dropped by Eco-Culture again just now to pick up a Copper test kit. I actually visited Reborn first as I thought a fish shop specialising in marine fish would definitely have a copper test kit. But whadayya know? They have plenty of test kits but not the copper one. Bleah

Anyway, Azmi was very nice and gave me a copper test kit for free. I checked and the copper levels are zero. I'll see if it sky-rockets tomorrow.

By the way, guys, the pair of Betta albimarginatus in Eco-Culture that I was interested in has spawned, I should have bought the fish. Shucks.

Loh K L

[TyroneGenade]

I do not think that copper will be a problem in your well planted tank and anoxic substrate when the copper pipe has matured. You should have enough free shulphide ions (S-) to react with the copper anc cause it to precipitate out of solution. I doubt you will register any Copper reading on your test kit.

Copper toxicity depends on the levels of Calcium and Magnesium in the water. The harder the water the less toxic the copper. For Indian Carp the LC50 at 96 hrs was about 0.5 mg/L and 11 mg/L for Channa punctatus at a carbonate hardness of 100 mg/L.

Now the bad news... there is a lot of residual copper on that pipe with the result that you are pumping a LOAD of copper into the tank. This is a major problem with new buildings as well. New pipes release a lot of copper in soft water initially and then mature (get coverred with insoluable precipitates).

If you can, do a 90% water change right now and disconect the copper pipe from your system and first let water run through that copper pipe continually for about a week. At this point I am very worried for your Apistogramma and barbs.

I could be wrong... and there is no need to panic but you have been warned.

[FC]

I agree fully with Tyrone.

Copper will age over time (months/years) with water flow, forming some form of oxide on its' wall that is tough and inert.

[timebomb]

I found a dead Notho rachoviiin the tank today. But he's the only casuality. The shrimps are doing fine. I took half of Tyrone's advice and changed about 50% of the water. Before that, I tested the water with the copper test kits and the readings were zero.

By the way, I didn't get 22 degrees C. But the thermometer is showing 23 degrees more often. The difference between the temperatures in the freezer and the tank has also become narrower. For the first time this afternoon, the difference was only about a degree as opposed to 2 to 3 degrees when I was using the so-called PVC 50 metre hose.

Loh K L

[timebomb]

Hey, fellas,

I didn't get 22 C but 23 C is pretty good. So I've decided to put my DIY chiller/freezer on timer. I'm concerned that if the freezer's motor runs 24 hours non-stop, it will burnt itself out very soon. I set the timer such that the freezer goes off twice a day, for half an hour before midnight and for another 45 minutes before dawn. Midnight to dawn is when the weather's the coolest so I think it's the best time for the chiller to be off.

I've also started my undergravel heating cables working. I had them in my tank ever since it was set up 2 years ago but not seeing any benefits to my plants, I switched them off. My tank, before I had the freezer was constantly around 27 so the undergravel cables never worked. But now that my tank is so cold, I suppose there could be some benefits.

I met a Frenchman several years ago. He works for an aquatic plant import/exporter somewhere in Holland. He told me his company conducted experiments on undergravel heating cables. They set up 2 tanks, one with undergravel cables and one without. They planted the 2 tanks with the exact same number of plants. All the plants were weighed to make sure both tanks got the exact same weight of plants. All other parameters - lighting, CO2, fertilisation etc were the same. After several months, all the plants were pulled out and weighed again. They found there was hardly any difference. In other words, undergravel heating cables don't work.

But hey, I'm a skeptic And I try anything.

Loh K L

[TyroneGenade]

I have always found Nothos to be quite sensitive to copper... others have not but then again I was keeping my Nothos in quite soft water.

If the Notho died from copper poisoning (which can't be proved) you must have a copper reading. But as your shrimps are fine it must be very low but certainly not zero.

Good to hear the fish are all doing well inspite of my gloom-and-doom prophecies.

tt4n

[timebomb]

If the Notho died from copper poisoning (which can't be proved) you must have a copper reading. But as your shrimps are fine it must be very low but certainly not zero.

It's all circumstantial evidence but it's quite clear the Notho died because of the copper tubing. I'm pretty sure about this because the day before, it was very healthy. I don't know why the other Notho didn't die though. There used to be 2 in the tank. Now there's only one and he's still alive and kicking.

I forgot to mention this earlier but the water in the tank exhibited a slight tinge of brown when I came home from work this afternoon. After the 50% water change, the brown tinge disappeared. I intend to change the water frequently over the next few days until the copper has matured or becomes inert or something. Surely, copper can't do much harm. The piping in my house are all copper pipes and I've been drinking water straight from the taps for the last 20 years. I'm still around so copper can't be that bad, right?

Loh K L