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Cheaper aquarium chillers from aliexpress anyone?

demetrisag

Member
Joined
20 May 2021
Messages
48
Location
Cyprus
Do any of you have experience with those cheaper 100-150 euros chillers from aliexpress? Are they good enough? I have a 60 litre aquarium
 
@demetrisag I do not know the specifics of the products from aliexpress. However, With a set of good strong fans around the surface you can usually get a drop of a couple of degrees Celsius... You'll have a lot of water evaporation though, but then you can top that off with conditioned and chilled water. How hot is the water btw / and what livestock do you keep?
Cheers,
Michael
 
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I have danios, tetras, amano shrimps, neocaridina shrimps and nerite snails (roughly 20 all of those together)

Plants I have:
Narrow java fern,
Monte carlo
Eleocharis mini
Pogostemon erectus
Pogostomeno helferi
Bucefalandra kedagang
Anubia nana
Staurogyne repens
Hydrocotyle verticilata
Bacopa caroliana

My temperature with the fans I already have (aquamedic) can go up to 28c and the fans are running non stop. I think 28c it's too much that's why I was thinking for a chiller but they are too damn expensive
 
Most of the purpose built chillers use titanium tubing so they can be used with salt water and that is why they can be so expensive.
In the good old days, beer coolers were very popular, they do work with fresh water and can very often be found at give away prices.
 
Beer coolers are used to cool drinks served by a bar tap, they are used in every establishment that sells beer or soft drinks by the tap, restaurants, cafes, hotels and bars.
So they are mass produced and often available second hand.
 
Agree with @foxfish you can often pick them up second hand from the home brew shops, however they can be large devices and quiet noisey for a domestic room.

Another way, we have read about though never personally used, is to use a small fridge or freezer , placing a coil of hose inside and pumping the tank water through, though you will need good temp control to turn the pump on and off.
 
Oh great mate! I read your review. You had good things to say, now that I know it's available I will check it again!
 
Sorry its not my review, i'm just aware of the model as an LFS started importing it and it was popular with shrimp keepers with nano tanks.

There are plenty of adapters to connect different size hoses. The chiller I use (JBJ Artica) is 12/16 while my Fluval is 16/22 - I use a Shiruba quick release tap (because their 12/16 quick release can connect with a 16/22 quick release - which brands like Eheim cannot do)
 
Professional coolers for Beer and soft drink installations are quite bulky and aggressive. Hence best regular beer(Pilsener) temp is a constant 5°C
It actually is a refrigerator motor cooling with refrigerants without the fridge attached. :) I'm not sure how stable they can be configured to provide higher temperatures such as +20°C. Depending on temperatures what you are aiming for...
Bier-Externe-Motor-01.jpg


Here you'll find some smaller budget models, still not very cheap.

The water coolers that use air to cool actually will always have a hard time cooling below the ambient air temperature provided. :) It will make not that much of a difference, maybe 2 or 3°C...
 
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I have no experience with chillers, but I get aquarium supplies from AliExpress quite often and am consistently happy with the performance of the items, they post reviews too so you can see what others think also
 
I have a feeling that air coolers performance is very affected by the humidity in the room. And where I live humidity levels are off the charts. And air cooling mostly makes waves on the water and gets maximum 1degree lower whereas days without much humidity it can go 2-3 degrees
 
I have a feeling that air coolers performance is very affected by the humidity in the room. And where I live humidity levels are off the charts. And air cooling mostly makes waves on the water and gets maximum 1degree lower whereas days without much humidity it can go 2-3 degrees

Cooling by evaporation is a natural process, it's actually how living organisms try to keep themselves cool by perspiration (Sweating).

So you actually experience the very same thing, on hot dry days you sweat, but still, feel dry and stay cooler than on moist days, you will, sweat but stay warmer and wet.

Evaporation requires energy and is an energy transfer between 2 states from water(sweat) to vapour, the energy loss in between it is the cooling process. When you are wet and its hot and dry you can see yourself steam, on hot and moist days you won't, because the air is already saturated with too much water. :)
 
So I guess is that the reason that on moist days the temperature wont change much?

Yes something like that, there will always be a certain degree of moisture in the air... Then if air speeds up and is compressed through an heat exchanger and the moisture in it actually condenses and warms up again and evaporates and this process of energy exchange from water to vapour then the vapour takes the heat from the surface with it. If the air humidity is higher and relatively saturated this process is less effective because evaporation is suppressed and thus will cool down less.


Therefore we humans experience a relatively warm day with high air humidity much warmer and less pleasant and soggy as in the same temperature in less air humidity. Because our sweat evaporates faster in lower air humidity then we cool down more and makes it feel less soggy.

Or if you are riding on a bike at 30°C it feels cooler, but the wind is still 30°C. The wind actually makes you evaporate faster i guess that's what makes it feel cool even tho it still the same temperature as if you were standing still.
 
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