Chiller Selection 3/3/09 Greetings: <Hello Mark> I just have a quick question on chillers. I have decided to buy either a Teco or a JBJ chiller. They both include a 2 year warranty which is important to me, <There are brands with a 5 year warranty.> and both are relatively energy efficient. Which would you choose, and why? Does one have a better reputation than the other when durability, parts availability, and service are considered? <I looked at one of Teco's chillers on-line. They list a noise level of 39db (A scale), pretty low noise level. At the JBJ site, I couldn't find a noise level specification on their chillers. If this were to be kept in a living/family room environment, I would look for the lowest noise level. Personally, JBJ products scare me, I hear/read too many negatives, not necessarily chillers, but other products. But to be fair with both companies, I would post this question on one of the marine forums, get input from current users of both, then make your decision. I will contact someone I know in the aquarium etailer business and get his input for you and send as soon as I receive.> Thanks, <You're welcome. James (Salty Dog)> Mark

Re Chiller Selection 3/3/09 Hello Mark, I received a response from my contact at Premium Aquatics as to his input on chillers. I've pasted below for you to read. James (Salty Dog) Hi James, Both Teco and JBJ are good, middle of the pack choices when it comes to chillers. JBJ's history of subpar products does not carry over to their chiller line. Their units are some of the quietest on the market, and the compressor / internals seems to be built really well. The same can be said for Teco as well. If you are wanting a higher end unit, that is completely built here in the US with an excellent warranty, then take a look at the Tradewind line. They use the famous Copeland compressor in them, high grade titanium exchanger, and up to a 5yr warranty on some of the models. You also have the luxury of having the manufacturer right here in the US for support, as well as stock on replacement parts if that need were ever to arise. Thanks, Jeremy Premium Aquatics, Inc. www.premiumaquatics.com 317-895-9005 317-895-9395 fax

Not Moving Query Before Answering.. Making a Tank Quieter and Cooler 4/6/05 (Whose Take?) Hi. I sent this e-mail to you last week and since I received no response, I thought maybe my Spam Blocker got it. So I am going to resend from a different e-mail address.  <Sorry that you didn't get a reply. With the huge volume of mail that we get, once in a while one gets blocked, bounced, lost, etc. Thanks for giving us a second chance!> I appreciate any help you can give me. (I have looked at other questions and answers on your site and they tend to conclude that: there is no quiet way to cool a tank with a chiller and the JBL chiller is probably the best on the market today. So maybe my questions below are not worth responding to.)  <All questions deserve a reply! Most chillers are noisy, but it is not hopeless.> I have two questions that are related. Let me start by describing my current setup. I have a 135 gallon reef aquarium with a 30 gallon sump. It is six feet long with 4 VHO lights (kept about 3 inches above the glass) and is used as a room partition with dedicated outlets in the cabinet under the tank. I had a custom cabinet built with the air vents on the 4 doors below, on both sides. I have a single return that is powered by a Mag 9.5 (950 GPH) pump. In addition to the return pump, in the sump I have a Aqua Medic Turboflotor protein skimmer powered by a Rio pump and also a smaller 200 gph Rio pump for more power through the skimmer. Finally I have a drop-in 1/4 HP Delta chiller with the coil placed in the sump. The tank is doing great.  <Sounds like a very nice set-up. Submersible pumps like the Rio and Mag add a surprising amount of heat!> I moved into an a/c apartment about 1 ? [??] ago, which we keep about 68-72 degrees. Even in the winter my tank runs hot. The chiller is set to run when the temperature of the water is 77 degrees and it seems to be running 4-6 hours a day, mostly when the lights are on (which is around 11 hours per day). Without the chiller on, the tank will go above 85 degrees during the day and come down to around only 82 degrees at night. In the summer the temperature goes even higher.  <77 degrees is a bit on the low side for a target temperature. Most folks run their reef tanks at 80-82 degrees. In the summer I often tolerate up to 85. It is much more important to avoid spikes greater than about 5 degrees. Adding vents and fans to the cabinet and hood will help a lot. I had a very similar set-up and never needed a chiller.> Question 1: My wife complains about the noise since the tank is right in the middle of the living room/den. Any way that I can make the setup quieter?  <Since this is an apartment, you can't move the chiller to the basement. You can place the chiller on a vibration dampening pad.> Question 2: The chiller seems to be not performing well. I bought it about 3 years ago. I try to keep the water at about 77-79 degrees. Over the past couple of months, I have seen the tank go to 85 plus degrees and hear the chiller running but the coil is not very cold. (The grills are kept fairly clean and clear.) If I play with the chiller (jiggle the adjustable coil hose or turn the chiller off and back on) it seems to kick in better. With summer approaching I am getting nervous. Any ideas what I can do to cool the tank? Should I buy a new cooler that might work better? Is there a chiller out there that would also make the tank a little quieter.  <I am not sure which chiller will be quieter. I would have a pro look at your current chiller. It is often hard to find refrigeration or AC folks that will look at a chiller, but if you shop around you will find one.> Additional question to my earlier e-mail: If I get the JBL in-line chiller, with my set-up do you think I can get a Mag 12 (1200 GPH) pump, send the water first through the cooler and then straight back to the tank or do you think it is better to have another pump in the sump that sends the water to the chiller and back to the sump? Is the heat from adding another pump to the sump defeating the purpose of a chiller? <I would suggest one large external pump to supply both the chiller and the tank. This will reduce the heat being transferred to the tank. Running through the chiller to the tank will cost you a great deal of flow and may exceed the maximum pressure recommended by the manufacturer.> Thank you for your help. David <Glad to help!>

Cooling Hi Crew, I don't have a question today, more of an opinion which I would like your comments on.  I have read in a lot of places about chillers not being necessary and than fans will do the job of cooling. <Within "reason", many circumstances, yes>   Here is my setup and situation.  I have a 90G acrylic reef tank that will house mostly SPS corals and some clams.  I am using two 250W 10,000K bulbs.  I went with these over the 175W because I didn't want to be limited to the top half of the tank for things like clams.  The canopy has about 12 inches of height in it, the lights are about 10 inches from the water surface.  I have one 4 inch fan blowing over the right side of the tank and another fan on the opposite side drawing out the air.  The back of the canopy is open.  I have a 30G sump below.  Since I need a lot of flow, I started out with 2 Iwaki MD40RLXT's, one for the sump return, the other for closed loop circulation.  They turned out to be too loud for a living room setting, so I replaced the sump return Iwaki with a Velocity T4, kept the other Iwaki for the closed loop.  I would be willing to bet that the Velocity is one of the quietest pumps out there.  It makes my wife very happy!  Problem is that it produces A LOT of heat.  I also have a Rio 2100 pump in the sump running my Aqua C EV-120, another pretty big heat producer.  I have two 3/4 Sea Swirls at the ends of the sump return lines which I imagine produce some heat as well.  Beyond this, all else is pretty standard.  No excessive 90 degree elbows, etc.  Our house has central air, thermostat set to 80 degrees.  With fans blowing over the top of the tank, cover off of the sump, ambient room temperature of 78 degrees, the tank temperature is at 86 degrees.  I suppose I could run two more fans in the canopy, but the amount of evaporation would not be worth it.  I don't have any sort of auto top off device, too difficult where it is located.  It would probably have a detrimental effect on my specific gravity.  Plus, since it is a standard acrylic tank, the openings on the top are not very big, so blowing the fans across the top helps cool it down, but in turn, covers the top with salt.  Then my lights become less effective, to much crud on the top of the tank.  I can run a fan over the sump, but I don't think this well help too much, plus back to having too much water evaporating. <Worth trying though> The rear of the stand is completely open, so it doesn't get warm in there at all. I can blow a fan over the Velocity pump, I have read that somewhere, but I don't believe it will help that much.  The room temp is 78, still have another couple of degrees to go before the AC kicks in.  So in my case, I didn't see any other solution than using a chiller.  Now I don't have any worries about the salinity level changing drastically.  I put covers over the tank top openings so the canopy fans remove the heat from the lights, but doesn't get salt all over the place.  The JBJ Arctica chiller is pretty quiet and only runs about 15 minutes every few hours, so it is not too bad.  But without the chiller, I don't think the tank would ever drop below 84 degrees which is still a bit high.  What are your opinions? Hope you are having a good Memorial Weekend Paul <Thank you. I do think your system is a good candidate for a chiller. The mid-eighties can be a dangerous place if "something goes wrong". I also encourage you to look into a top-off device... some simple "float valves" can be attached to the sump wall and serviced by pressurized water from a distal location. Bob Fenner>

Chillers Hi Crew,<IanB here tonight> I don't have a question today, more of an opinion which I would like your comments on.  I have read in a lot of places about chillers not being necessary and than fans will do the job of cooling.  Here is my setup and situation.  I have a 90G acrylic reef tank that will house mostly SPS corals and some clams.  I am using two 250W 10,000K bulbs.  I went with these over the 175W because I didn't want to be limited to the top half of the tank for things like clams.  The canopy has about 12 inches of height in it, the lights are about 10 inches from the water surface.  I have one 4 inch fan blowing over the right side of the tank and another fan on the opposite side drawing out the air.  The back of the canopy is open.  I have a 30G sump below.  Since I need a lot of flow, I started out with 2 Iwaki MD40RLXT's, one for the sump return, the other for closed loop circulation.  They turned out to be too loud for a living room setting, so I replaced the sump return Iwaki with a Velocity T4, kept the other Iwaki for the closed loop.  I would be willing to bet that the Velocity is one of the quietest pumps out there.<very quiet indeed>  It makes my wife very happy!  Problem is that it produces A LOT of heat.<for everything good there is always a drawback>  I also have a Rio 2100 pump in the sump running my Aqua C EV-120, another pretty big heat producer. <yea>  I have two 3/4 Sea Swirls at the ends of the sump return lines which I imagine produce some heat as well.<to some extent>  Beyond this, all else is pretty standard.  No excessive 90 degree elbows,<good> etc.  Our house has central air, thermostat set to 80 degrees.  With fans blowing over the top of the tank, cover off of the sump, ambient room temperature of 78 degrees, the tank temperature is at 86 degrees.  I suppose I could run two more fans in the canopy, but the amount of evaporation would not be worth it.  I don't have any sort of auto top off device, too difficult where it is located.  It would probably have a detrimental effect on my specific gravity.  Plus, since it is a standard acrylic tank, the openings on the top are not very big, so blowing the fans across the top helps cool it down, but in turn, covers the top with salt.<that can be a problem>  Then my lights become less effective, to much crud on the top of the tank.  I can run a fan over the sump, but I don't think this well help too much, plus back to having too much water evaporating.  The rear of the stand is completely open, so it doesn't get warm in there at all. I can blow a fan over the Velocity pump, I have read that somewhere, but I don't believe it will help that much.<don't think so either>  The room temp is 78, still have another couple of degrees to go before the AC kicks in.  So in my case, I didn't see any other solution than using a chiller.  Now I don't have any worries about the salinity level changing drastically.  I put covers over the tank top openings so the canopy fans remove the heat from the lights, but doesn't get salt all over the place.  The JBJ Arctica chiller is pretty quiet and only runs about 15 minutes every few hours, so it is not too bad.  But without the chiller, I don't think the tank would ever drop below 84 degrees which is still a bit high.  What are your opinions? <I too doubt the temperature in the aquarium will drop below 84 degrees (and you need a temperature around 78-80 degrees), I would purchase the chiller (better safe than sorry). I am enclosing a link that might help you  http://www.wetwebmedia.com/chillersmar.htm  good luck with the chiller, and aquarium, IanB> Hope you are having a good Memorial Weekend, Paul

Making a Tank Quieter and Cooler Hi. I sent this e-mail to you last week and since I received no response, I thought maybe my Spam Blocker got it. So I am going to resend from a different e-mail address. <Don't know what happened David, I did send the response.> <<And Marina posted on Dailies.>> I appreciate any help you can give me. (I have looked at other questions and answers on your site and they tend to conclude that: there is no quiet way to cool a tank with a chiller and the JBL chiller is probably the best on the market today. So maybe my questions below are not worth responding to.) <<NEVER the case!>> I have two questions that are related. Let me start by describing my current setup. I have a 135 gallon reef aquarium with a 30 gallon sump. It is six feet long with 4 VHO lights (kept about 3 inches above the glass) and is used as a room partition with dedicated outlets in the cabinet under the tank. I had a custom cabinet built with the air vents on the 4 doors below, on both sides.  I have a single return that is powered by a Mag 9.5 (950 GPH) pump. In addition to the return pump, in the sump I have a Aqua Medic Turboflotor protein skimmer powered by a Rio pump and also a smaller 200 gph Rio pump for more power through the skimmer. Finally I have a drop-in 1/4 HP Delta chiller with the coil placed in the sump. The tank is doing great.  I moved into an a/c apartment about 1? [??] ago, which we keep about 68-72 degrees. Even in the winter my tank runs hot. The chiller is set to run when the temperature of the water is 77 degrees and it seems to be running 4-6 hours a day, mostly when the lights are on (which is around 11 hours per day).  Without the chiller on, the tank will go above 85 degrees during the day and come down to around only 82 degrees at night. In the summer the temperature goes even higher.  <David, your chiller may need a Freon charge. Any A/C guy can do this.> Question 1: My wife complains about the noise since the tank is right in the middle of the living room/den. Any way that I can make the setup quieter? <Ask the wife to leave?:):) Joking. Try lining the interior of the cabinet with insulating Styrofoam. That should help.> Question 2: The chiller seems to be not performing well. I bought it about 3 years ago. I try to keep the water at about 77-79 degrees. Over the past couple of months, I have seen the tank go to 85 plus degrees and hear the chiller running but the coil is not very cold. (The grills are kept fairly clean and clear.) If I play with the chiller (jiggle the adjustable coil hose or turn the chiller off and back on) it seems to kick in better.  With summer approaching I am getting nervous. Any ideas what I can do to cool the tank? Should I buy a new cooler that might work better? Is there a chiller out there that would also make the tank a little quieter?  <As above, check the Freon level.> (Additional question to my earlier e-mail)  If I get the JBL in-line chiller, with my set-up do you think I can get a Mag 12 (1200 GPH) pump, send the water first through the cooler and then straight back to the tank or do you think it is better to have another pump in the sump that sends the water to the chiller and back to the sump? Is the heat from adding another pump to the sump defeating the purpose of a chiller? <Any additional pumps is going to add a little additional heat to the tank. Thing is if you pump the water through the chiller and into the tank you will get a significant flow drop. I think I would use another pump to pump water from the sump to the chiller and back into the sump and use the existing pump for flow back into the tank.> Thank you for your help. <You're welcome. James (Salty Dog)>