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water Water chiller for reservoir?

slashroot

slashroot

Hi guys!

Are there anybody out there using water chiller for keeping a stable and good temperature in the reservoir?

These devices seem pretty expensive!

Any suggestions about other methods to decrease reservoir temperatures?

Would it be possible to put an ice bottle into the reservoir as a temporary control? Would be quite time consuming!

Many say that 68F is pretty ideal. Some of my hottest days indoor can be 79F, that's in the reservoir.

It's ebb and flow so it wont be in direct touch with the roots. Ice would be a bad idea for DWC I think?
 
you will need lots of ice bottle to keep te temps that low. have you tried wrapping the res in HVAC foil tape? what is causing the res temps to go up?
 
spongey600 said:
you will need lots of ice bottle to keep te temps that low. have you tried wrapping the res in HVAC foil tape? what is causing the res temps to go up?
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Sure would have been a good idea for outdoors purposes :) It's just the room temperature heating the reservoir.

The ice bottle thing was me trying to be smart but probably not practical at all haha

queequeg152 said:
do you have well water? you might be able to build a heat exchanger between the relatively cold well water and your warmer reservoir.

you would be wasting water tho.
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Sure is another idea if I only had a well.


Read somewhere that you could disassemble a water jug cooler like people use in offices. Dunno how effective that would be really.
 
Don't worry about 79 F. I'm running much hotter than that. I know smarter people than me said you can't go over 80 but I have been over 100 and doing fine. Either run a completely sterile system or add beneficials and enzymes. I go enzymes and beneficials.
If you're bored and want to try stuff out then take the cheapest office fridge you can find, put coils in it and run a pump. Adjust the thermostat inside the fridge. Peltier plates are neat but inefficient. I have heard that peltier plates with a heat exchanger will work somewhat efficiently. If you are warmer inside than outside run a loop to the outside.
 
frosty said:
Don't worry about 79 F. I'm running much hotter than that. I know smarter people than me said you can't go over 80 but I have been over 100 and doing fine. Either run a completely sterile system or add beneficials and enzymes. I go enzymes and beneficials.
If you're bored and want to try stuff out then take the cheapest office fridge you can find, put coils in it and run a pump. Adjust the thermostat inside the fridge. Peltier plates are neat but inefficient. I have heard that peltier plates with a heat exchanger will work somewhat efficiently. If you are warmer inside than outside run a loop to the outside.
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Probably wouldn't make the world of a difference to keep the temperatures perfect. I might be a bit of a perfectionist to try to max the plants growth.

You sure gave me some ideas and thoughts. Dunno if I will go that getto to create lowers temps hehe
 
i wrapped mine in HVAC tape and made a poly sheet wrap for them and it keeps them in the right range and the sun hits them from 12noon till sunset, it will be interesting to see how they do at the new house with different times of the day in the sun
 
I'm using a water chiller in my setup. Was around $300 off amazon but it works great and keeps my temps at 68 on the dot. Before that my res temps were around 78-83. At first I wasn't really worried about it but then my plants started to slow down in growth and root discoloration started. Soon as I got the chiller in there and did a nice clean nute change. Roots are back looking healthy and now my plants are setting fruit and everything. Now i just need to find the sweet spot they like in terms of my nute balance to avoid leaf curl and nute burn. Damn picky plants.
 
Water chillers work awesome. If I read correctly you said room was heating up res? What about moving res out of grow room that will certainly cool it down. We use ice bottles in our 30 gal current culture system and it gets temps from 73 to 68 in the time it takes to melt a normal sized water bottle. The res isnt affected by heat though.
 
I bought one last year after realizing that my nutrient was going to go way beyond recommended temp. Yes they are expensive but I'd agree they are worth every penny. Mine is a smaller unit, payed $375 but it will keep 20 gal cooled to 66F even if it's 90F in the room. Constant steady temp is ideal, I've bottles will not provide that and will become a real pain in the ass! Go for it if you can! There are too many issue that arise from warm nutrient. 1 Low disolved oxygen levels prevent the plants from absorbing fertilizer. 2 Root rot, pretty self explanatory.
 
The question I would be asking my self after looking at posts from people who grow outside without a chiller is this: Are the additional peppers I get with a chiller worth $375? It is a hobby not a business so the answer may be yes.

PWM custom is correct about the concern about high temps. That creates the challenge. Root rot can be dealt with by using enzymes and beneficial bacteria or a sterile system. Oxygen? overstated! The dissolved oxygen in water is very low when the water is warm. However you can look at passive systems and see that you don't need dissolved oxygen in the nutes to get oxygen to the plant. Avigorous bubbler creates pockets of air. Plus a bigger gap between the nutes and the top of the root ball. You could also do a flood and drain system which has a crap load of air to the roots.

I have been running outdoors with my nutes well above 100F for over a month. The biggest problem I have had is that I am going through too much water. So much in fact that I am going to reduce the number of plants I have. I'll plant them in the ground. So I would like a chiller but I am trying to find the cheapest way to grow big plants.
 
the difference in 20c and 40c isnt as castatrophic as most people think
oxygen-solubility-water-2.png

chlorinate imo.
 
"So I would like a chiller but I am trying to find the cheapest way to grow big plants"

Try soilless drain to waste on a watering system. 7 gal containers with Promix hp and some good hydroponic fertilizer you can have great results. You can fill a 55 gal drum with cold tap water, mix your fertilizer, then water right from that with a hose. Then no more thinking about water temp.
 
i am sorry but i grow hydro outside and i sit my buckets on foam insulation, wrap in hvac tape, and make a poly sleeve 2" larger in diameter than bucket and my temps are just fine! spend that 300 bucks on something else! and once your plants canopy gets big enough its shade will also aide in keeping temps down!
 
To get a water chiller here you would probably have to double that 300 bucks. I'm on the fence about getting a water chiller after all the feedback you guys have given.

This far I haven't noticed any root rot/discoloration. It was the thought about getting more healthy plants that tempted me, more oxygen for the roots but the chart queequeg152 posted shows how little difference it makes.

So far I've only improvised with some mylar fabric on the dwc lids. That doesn't help a whole lot. I should tape them all around with reflective tape like spongey600 mentioned, seems like a good idea :)

Came across this, do it yourself chiller. Seems a bit complicated, sure would take me a while to make anything like that!
 
Hey guys whats the prime reason for keeping the temps down is it to do with the nutes you guys put into the system?
 
Wildfire said:
Hey guys whats the prime reason for keeping the temps down is it to do with the nutes you guys put into the system?
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Too low or too high temperatures can slow down or stop growth. Many other problems that can come, like root rot/death.

Lower reservoir temperatures makes the water hold more oxygen, improving growth and overall health of the plant.

I'm no expert though. Don't know exactly what is the best reservoir temperature for pepper plants. Only found temperature recommendations for people growing weed, not something I'm doing but those temps might apply to peppers too.
 
sounds like low oxygen levels? Just curious cause I wonder how of if it can relate to my aquaponics system, My do level is pretty up there because of the electromagnetic air pump and the 6000lph pump pushing water round the system.
 
please,please,please do yourselves a favor, and at least try chlorinating the water before buying a 300$ chiller of dubious quality that's probably meant for indoor use with aquariums.

if you run recirc. DWC, try useing something like a spa chlorine 1" tablet floater.... if you don't have a control bucket setup, just pump a few ml of liquid bleach into the water every 12 hours.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Peristaltic-pump-DIY-doser-aquamedic-ABC-grotech-balling-hydroponic-/180908291264?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1ef974c0

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dosing-pump-Peristaltic-dosing-pump-for-aquarium-lab-/160823230828?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2571cfc16c

simply wire these pumps into a timer and pump for a few seconds every 12/24 hours.

id aim to maintain .5-1ppm free chlorine, thats more than enough to kill every living single cell thing inside your system.
get the cheap Taylor free chlorine test kit. it costs a little bit more than the stuff from walmart, but you can easily get refill reagents for like 1 dollar a bottle.

it will absolutely not harm the roots at 1ppm...i speak from experience , bleach/ calcium hypo is used widely in fertigation systems and hydro greenhouses.
 
I'm no expert either, i'm on my second year growing bhut jolokia in my garage. Too far north to grow them outside and actually get ripe peppers! Isn't it helpful to have beneficial bacteria and fungus in your system? The chlorine would kill all this stuff of would it not? Advanced Nutrients makes a couple products that Ive tried and seems to make sense. Can this help counter a solution that is a bit to warm?
 
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