Inert Metal Pipes for Inline Cooler?

[tizzite]

hello, I want to experiment with making an inline cooler for my 20g shrimp tank.

I want to take a CPU processor fan that's connected to a heatsink and attach the heatsink to a metal pipe that has a hose barb on either end. There would be no temperature control- the fan would just run all day, but I was thinking of using a potentiometer to control the fan speed.

Is anyone familiar with CPU liquid cooling? What metal should I choose for the pipe, and how could I attach it to the heat sink? Price is definitely a factor.

Would I have to weld it? Has anyone done something like this? Would it work?

[scotty b]

i cant sat what metal is safe but i know there is a compound glue like stuff for pc liquid cooling heatsink

[Hoppy]

What is heating up the shrimp tank water? If it is the room air that heats it, the cooler won't work, because it needs a heat sink that is at a lower temperature than the tank water. And, blowing warm air over a metal heatsink won't cool it off.

[Scraps]

I am familiar with cpu/gpu liquid cooling, that being said most "contact" surface areas are copper, or plated (nickle/chrome/gold) copper so not at all wanted for a invertebrate tank. But in liquid cooling cpu/gpu's all the heat that gets transferred into the water is then pushed through a radiator generally (have seen inefficient waterfall style evaporation cooling) Again this will not work since other hard metals would be introduced from the flux and tubes. A way around this is using a separate loop with a heat ex changer for the fluids you want separate, so fish water would go into this area where a piece of metal would transfer the heat to the other side where that water would be being put through a radiator fan setup.

But from what I read in your post it sounds like you are looking to hook a metal pipe up to a canister setup and then attaching an air heat sync. A more efficient method would be for the pipe to be custom constructed with multiple fins and to house the fan/fans on the fins to blow/suck the air over them. Again you are faced with the selection of metals, which for pc cooling you want best thermal performance(copper) but for this application you are looking for the least reactive to water for your faunas health, this information I do not have. I know boats use nickle on their underside to help prevent the water from destroying the main metal, but I do not know if it is bad for inverts.

After a quick google search it seems most aquarium chillers are made with titanium, but I do not know how well it transfers heat(would require another search), and all the chillers seem to be phase change units (condensers). Other than simple fan setups to blow on the water (advanced evaporation cooling)

[tizzite]

ok, thanks so much for the tips. This may not be a simple diy after all. The warm texas air might be the main factor as to why this won't work.

[majorwoo]

Yeah, Hoppy said it well. I've built a few projects like this for various "that sounds cool" type things. Now if your lights are what's heating the tank and not the ambient air you could do some stuff like this to draw the heat from the lights away before it warms the tank (and over engineer it to have some fun with liquid cooling in the process )

[tizzite]

Ok, something like what I had in mind exists:
http://chillsolutions.com/products/c...uarium-chiller

This costs $200, but I think this will be limited to air temperature too, right? Their manual says it can lower temperature of a 20g tank 10 degrees below ambient. How can this be possible?

Someone's experiences with it:
http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/32192...hiller-review/

[Darks!de]

Looks like a nice little chiller, but again, with no condenser it's really limited by air temps around it to transfer the heat off the heatsink. With my axolotl tank, I had to base it's placement pretty much solely on where the AC unit would be. It works well, and if you need extra cooling you could always DIY somekind of HVAC hose onto one of the AC vents --> tank.

Luke