# How can i get Water cold Cheap. or DIYish



## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Hey guys I am feeling a cold water aquarium coming and i am curious as to how i can get the aquarium to stay below 60. I do have an unused refrigeration unit lol.. if that helps. The aquarium could be 180 gal so if u have any ideas please let me know.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Long term chilling with a fridge at those temps burns out the bar fridge in about a year. A lot of reefers have tried to DIY that, and typically it's not a really long term solution.

How cold is your basement? Having the tank on a concrete floor in a basement (assuming you live in a house) could be an option.

Otherwise, a chiller is needed. For your tank size, it could run you as little as $300, but can quickly go higher.


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Ah I see,the basement is about 65-70 when its cold. I wish there was a better solution then 300$+ lol, but i suppose that is the more safe and quality way. I was going to try trout. make a current and everything lol thats the easy part though.


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## shrtmann (Feb 15, 2009)

haha that would be a pretty cool setup for sure...had a friend that had a trout and bass in a tank for a while and just left everything at room temperature and it everything was fine. no heater no chiller
I think eventually he just let them free cuz thy got too big for his 55.


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## AquaNeko (Jul 26, 2009)

Some ideas come to mind on this as I've read on this in another view (from a gardening/geothermal heat/cooling viewpoint). I've seen on Hackaday a person building thier house from scratch layed out a hell of a lot of piping which was filled in to the house foundation. This person IIRC was a hardcore gamer or computer person and that was one way to watercool his setup. While that is a bit on the hardcore extreme level my thinking is in your house in the basement you could with a hammer chisel out a 3x3ft or more to your liking (I'm thinking small as well less work obviously and less cost on refill material) then bury a lot of plastic tubing in there, mix up some quick set cement, fill area and let it set. Being a very small job like that probably would take you half to a day to finish. As far as I know (I am not a structual engineer) I would think such a small section would not compromise the structual integretity of the foundation as I've seen many times on Holmes on Homes where they totally trenched 1-2 ft by 10-15 ft down for fix plumbing inside the house. 

Hey may as well let the house and ground work for you I say. Just a thought to run with. Also not sure if this would work but if you have a mini chest freezer or bar fridge drill two holes in and fill it with hose and start a mini pump to pump water into the fridge and upt again back into the tank.


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## Chris S (Dec 19, 2007)

It is illegal to keep native species as pets unless you have a collector's permit (which is not the same as a fishing licence).


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## Tropicana (Feb 15, 2009)

Indeed Chris S i have thought that through and was willing to look into it and if i did go through with it, I would get a permit. But it was an idea. 

lol Thats a bit of a project AquaNeko but its not my basement to rip up, . The house is rented.


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## Calmer (Mar 9, 2008)

Tropicana said:


> lol Thats a bit of a project AquaNeko but its not my basement to rip up, . The house is rented.


Just tell the landlord that you are putting in a heat pump for free.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

That's all fine and dandy till you rip it out when you move out


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## gucci17 (Oct 11, 2007)

ameekplec. said:


> That's all fine and dandy till you rip it out when you move out


Or when the next tenants / owners call the cops on you because they think there's a dead body burried in the foundation...SOPRANOS!


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## bigfishy (Jun 19, 2009)

Tropicana said:


> Hey guys I am feeling a cold water aquarium coming and i am curious as to how i can get the aquarium to stay below 60. I do have an unused refrigeration unit lol.. if that helps. The aquarium could be 180 gal so if u have any ideas please let me know.


VERY EASY and CHEAP!!! $200 and below!!!! ^^

DIY Chiller!!! ^^ very EFFECTIVE too!!!!

Here is a link of how you do it, and lot of pictures too!!! Enjoy!



http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48798


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

They don't last too long. It burns out the compressor fairly quickly and the small fridges used for this need to be replaced every year or so - that and it's less efficient then using a real chiller.


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## bae (May 11, 2007)

This is extremely wasteful, but if your tap water isn't metered.... You could just run water into the tank continuously and overflow it into your basement floor drain. You could run it into a mixing container with a constant drip of dechlorinator or else through some organic material like peat before it reaches the tank.

Which native species can be legally kept without a permit is complicated. IIRC, you can't keep any 'game' fish. Which 'minnows' you can keep isn't easy to figure out either, unless you are really good at identifying them. You can't keep bluegills or any kind of native sunfish, although you are free to kill and eat as many as you like, as long as you don't sell them.

If you want something that doesn't need heating or chilling, how about goldfish or koi? A friend had a 8' diameter 2' deep round aquaculture tank with some large pet koi in his basement. He found that he had to reverse the direction of the circular water movement from his pump periodically because the fish got more muscular on one side than the other from always swimming into the current in the same direction!


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## AquaNeko (Jul 26, 2009)

Tropicana said:


> Indeed Chris S i have thought that through and was willing to look into it and if i did go through with it, I would get a permit. But it was an idea.
> 
> lol Thats a bit of a project AquaNeko but its not my basement to rip up, . The house is rented.


Is the ground carpeted? If so then cut up some carpet but not cut it out of the whole cloth. Keep it attached. Drop your tubing in then have the tubes near the wall.

If/when it's time to move flush as much water out of the tubes as possible. With a knife cut it flush to the ground. Then roll back the peeled up carpet to cover it or better yet just a little hammering on the area there then bury ~1/2-1" of the tube into the gorund with a quick top smooth coat of left over cement mix. Tuck carpet back and use duct tape rolled up to be double sided after a days drying and no one will know it was there. I'm just saying that's all.


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