Lower water temps without chiller?

Damn pics didn't copy over tho so here they are.

Way2-High said:

I’m not a hydro guy but I can tell you how to make a cheap chiller. Get a old bar fridge and some hose or copper pipe and coil it inside the fridge. Connect a pump and let her circulate the water from your rez, should work pretty well. I used a setup like that on a cold water aquarium I had years ago and it worked well and cost me not a penny as I had the materials laying around already.
Hope that helps

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Copper pipe should not be used. The acidic nutes going thru will soon leach enough copper to be toxic to the plants. Food grade plastic tubing or stainless steel is OK. Copper tubing has lots of other contaminants in it like heavy metals that you don't want in your plants either. Tubing submerged in water will cool much more efficiently than if just exposed to cold air. If using a fridge then should have a fan going in there to help cool the tubing.

OldMedUser said:

I just gave this as a reply to someone asking how I made my DIY chiller from an old water cooler. How timely.

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lol...that was me! thanks for the info. I have been hanging onto an old water cooler to use just for this purpose, I've had to rescue it from the wife's garage sale clutches more than once.

Same with my wife.

My boss at a place I worked was going to toss it out and already got a new one so I took it home. Said it froze up so I put straight car antifreeze in the tank. Don't freeze up now but if the nutes aren't constantly moving they can freeze in the tubing.