What is a good water chiller?

I have 100 gallon res with 80 gallons in it and a water pump in it and 79* ambient temps... water temp is about 75* I would like it to be at most 71, but 66-68 would be ideal. Not sure what size water chiller to get or what would be a good brand. Noise is also a factor and it is hard finding info on how loud they are.

hailea always buy the model up from the res size they recommend on there site.

Also beware of the extra heat it will produce if air cooled and in the same room. There are many guides on google re sizing! try not to oversize to much at all as the unit will cycle to much causing a lot of stress on compressor and higher running costs. The engineering specs should have sound ratings and atleast it will help compare. If you have access to a hvac wholesaler you may be able to purchase one from there as well at a bit cheaper price. I am going to try to use a water cooler this spring as I have one but i fear it will be a tad small lol.

do you use a submersible pump? some submersibles can be used as inlines too and you can pull the heat off the pump with your fan into your grow instead of your hydro water.
also consider insulating all the buckets.

these are things i'd consider first before investing in something that expensive

I have 130L res with a summersible eco 165 and it raises temp 2-3F.

waterdawg said:

I have 130L res with a summersible eco 165 and it raises temp 2-3F.

Click to expand...

what is youw watering schedule? in other words how many minutes does it turn on per day

Its on 24/7 typically. Have experimented with different schedules but plants seem to do better that way.

waterdawg said:

Its on 24/7 typically. Have experimented with different schedules but plants seem to do better that way.

Click to expand...

i don't know eco 165, its rating is what in L/min or watts? I am interested to know just by how much would a submersible raise water temps

My water pump doesn't get that hot, but it can be setup inline which I thought about doing. I didn't think about heat exhausted from the water chiller, I had planned to put it in the grow room but I don't think that's going to work since I hit low 80s ambient already. If not in the grow room, I do have an aquarium near by that I could possibly set up a chiller next to for misdirection (I have people come over sometimes).

How big is your grow room?

If decent size heat out chiller won't do anything

I have a 1/4 hp chiller that drops 35 gallons by 12 degreesF in about half an hour. The compressor types are much efficient than the thermoelectric. The thermoelectrics are very limited in what they put out. I can't see them being useful for anything bigger than a small aquarium. I bought my chiller used from a hydro store at 50% off.. It had only been run one day, according to the salesman. The previous owner tried to use two of them to cool 25 10' PVC tubes in an outdoor grow in hot Florida. Not nearly enough. Some use frozen water bottles, but my freezer couldn't keep up. Mine is an AquaChill 132.

zem said:

i don't know eco 165, its rating is what in L/min or watts? I am interested to know just by how much would a submersible raise water temps

Click to expand...

Both. Its power usage is in watts and its pumping capabilities are in l/min and gpm. Not sure what the watts are they r under water right now lol. And flow rate depends on lift.

Sizing a chiller is quite easy as well, it is based on btu's required to chill the water and a btu is the amount of energy required to drop one pound of water one degree. Water bottles are a real pain in the ass lol. I tried them last spring didnt work worth crap IMO. Perhaps with a smaller res and insulated it would have worked better. My res did get up to 75-80 for the last few weeks and no slime so I think I lucked out. I gotta say the plants liked it though!

Ya probably not! Take the rated wattage of the unit and times that by 3.4 and that will tell you how many BTU's you are adding to the room when its running, well close lol. Also you could direct the condensor fan out of the room or exhaust it with duct hood close to fan. if you have access to cheap water then water to water works very well and is cheaper if bought from supplier. Also keep in mind, and sorry if I mislead, but it removes far more heat than it produces. My solution right now is to grow like mad in the cooler months and shut down in summer lol.