Well N A, The Tankless Water Heater is the Bomb!

907, any pics of that setup? My new room is going to have the furnace room intake/exhaust running through it too and Im still wondering how to take advantage of it. Are you exhausting out your room also? Or is it sealed other than the intake?

And legally, what probs are you finding with beneficial? I was thinknig about going that route so I dont have to put ice bottles in every day
 
not too may problems. Beni's can really help with absorption, growth and yield. You still need to keep temps down though as your oxygen levels will plummet in warm water.
I'm making a chiller for mine this week.
 
Didnt you say that you were thinking about stopping bennies? And I thought one of the big point of bennies is that you DONT need to reduce res temps? I want to stop having to put water bottles in every day
 
I think perhaps you mis-interpreted, or perhaps I wasn't clear. There are basically two paths to go, beni or not. There are benefits to using beni's in the form of increased nutrient uptake,resistance to bad bacteria, etc. Its a balance between good and bad beni's. One that you don't have much control over really. The bad fungus and bacteria really start to bloom above 70 degrees..so they might overwhelm your good bacteria.

The other root is a "sterile" rhyzosphere. You add h2o2 every3-4 days in small doses. There are no fungus, bacteria, etc in the root zone. It is a fine technique but kind of misses the point so to speak when using organic nutes which end themselves to the complex interactions of breakdown and absorption between fungus colonies and root structures. H2o2 also adds oxygen to the water for plant uptake but it breaks apart and dissipates rather quickly, hence the 3-4 day maintenance doses.

A warm liquid inherently has less ability to hold dissolved gasses. (ever drink a warm soda that was also really fizzy? no you haven't as the co2 has come out of suspension). So if you water is warm, there is not much you can do to increase oxygen levels and oxygen in the root zone is CRITICAL.

My water temps have been hitting 75 so its time to do something about it. The chiller I am going to make is thus..

Craigs list window air conditioner =$50
50 feet of flexible 1/2" copper coil =$80
some 1/2 rubber hose
35 gallon container
smalll water pump.

The airconditioner is placed directly above the container filled with water. The shell of the air conditioner is taken off and the cooling fins (that the air passes through in front of the AC) are carefully bent down so they are sitting in the water. Therefore the AC is now cooling the water in the container. The copper coil is placed in the cold water and a small pump in your nutient rez pumps the water water through the rubber hose and through the copper coil (which is now cold) and back into the rez. Boom, homemade chiller.

Works on the same concept as one of those mobile keg Chiller cooler things. The warm beer passes through the cold copper coild in a cooler full of ice...instant cold beer. And who doesn't like cold beer?

The dopest of dope ways to do the same thing would be to bury the copper coils about 10 feet in the ground and use the cool earth to coil the water but I just don't have the time to do that and you would likely need more coil as earth is less conductive of heat than water.

ok? ok.
 
I would look on ebay for a stainless steel wort cooler. http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Super-Effic...599?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item439a3b0757

Put this directly in your rez and pump your cold chiller water through it. Use a smallish res so the water can be pulled down into the 50's easily. Stainless can go right into your nute water and will be way more effecient than plastic, cooper will leach out if in contact with mineral salts.
 
Yea, that copper will slowly leach into your solution and poison your girls. There are also some plate type Stainless heat exchangers on ebay.
 
ordered a stainless model from feebay. In the interest of not consuming even more power, I'm going to put a small bucket in my keg fridge and run the water through there. We will see how that works.
 
legallyflying said:
ordered a stainless model from feebay. In the interest of not consuming even more power, I'm going to put a small bucket in my keg fridge and run the water through there. We will see how that works.
Click to expand...


Worth a shot, but you will likely burn it out. A fridge is made to handle a passive load. I think it will work for a hydro rez, but no heaters.
 
rosecitypapa said:
I'm researching building a diy chiller myself. Any reason you decided to go with the repurposed refrig vs. the repurposed water cooler?

diy chiller from water cooler:
http://forum.grasscity.com/grow-room-design-setup/248366-klutters-diy-chiller-35-00-usd.html
Click to expand...

#1. generating more heat in the basement running an aircon sitting on a shelf
#2.power usage

I don't really understand the comment about burning out the fridge. I am going to put a 5 gallon pail of water in the fridge and circulate that water through the SS coil sitting in the rez. So are you saying the fridge will kick on a bunch more to keep the water cool? The other route would be to put a set of coils in the freezer, a separate set in the rez and just pump water and anti-freeze through the system.
 
legallyflying said:
...I don't really understand the comment about burning out the fridge. I am going to put a 5 gallon pail of water in the fridge and circulate that water through the SS coil sitting in the rez. So are you saying the fridge will kick on a bunch more to keep the water cool? The other route would be to put a set of coils in the freezer, a separate set in the rez and just pump water and anti-freeze through the system.
Click to expand...
I think you got it. The little fridge only cycles a few times when it needs to. Circulating warm water through it will cause it to cycle a lot or it will just keep cooling. The compressor was not built for constant running, only short cycles.
I was thinking if you have a sump pump that is quite active, mine runs all seasons including hard winters. There is always water in it and it pumps every 15 min or so. If it is possible to get lines to it, put a cooling coil in it. The ground water will absorb the heat, then the sump pump empties outside and new water fills the sump.
Just something that popped into my mind. Use the FREE cooling nature of water your constantly pumping out to keep your basement dry.
 
No sump pump. But I did think
About running a ground loop
Of 200' of polyethylene tubing. I cringed however at burying all the tubing and then having it not work :(.
 
legallyflying said:
No sump pump. But I did think
About running a ground loop
Of 200' of polyethylene tubing. I cringed however at burying all the tubing and then having it not work :(.
Click to expand...

That 50ft of stainless steel will likely disipate more heat than the 200ft of poly. You could always bury it. Should be sturdy enough that you can pull it out if it doesn't work. What kind of temps are we talking and how deep?
 
Well, my 55 gallon rez is topping out around 75.3. How deep? Good question, I suppose I would need to get at least 5 feet down to get deep enough to negate surface warming. Our average daily temperature (a good measure of soil temp) is around 52. I'm jsut wondering what the ability of the soil is in transferring and disapating the heat.
 
i would bet that the soil would just heat to what ever temp the water is being pump thru it. clay and rock are to of the best holders of heat thats why they use them to line fireplaces,ovens ect.
 
mrduke said:
i would bet that the soil would just heat to what ever temp the water is being pump thru it. clay and rock are to of the best holders of heat thats why they use them to line fireplaces,ovens ect.
Click to expand...

And then the dirt surrounding that dirt would heat up and the heat would disipate into the earth. It would definately work. I just don't know the formula for amount of surface area required.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top