Diy water chiller idea

Budget Buds said:

@Jon E. Doe here is what I'm looking at currently. Banana OG @39 days View attachment 3923084

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That's beautiful man. How long do you veg them for in that setup? It looks brilliant. Not near as crowded as my little "jungle". Mine grew much bushier. I've considered defolating some, but just can't bring myself to part with anything........ yet lol. Ive noticed that there are 2-3 wet spots on leaves from contacting other leaves. Makes me a bit nervous. Yours looks very clean in comparison. And you don't look jammed for real estate vertically, as I am. Killer grow you've got there. I hope it's straight fire for ya.

Jon E. Doe said:

That's beautiful man. How long do you veg them for in that setup? It looks brilliant. Not near as crowded as my little "jungle". Mine grew much bushier. I've considered defolating some, but just can't bring myself to part with anything........ yet lol. Ive noticed that there are 2-3 wet spots on leaves from contacting other leaves. Makes me a bit nervous. Yours looks very clean in comparison. And you don't look jammed for real estate vertically, as I am. Killer grow you've got there. I hope it's straight fire for ya.

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I went for about 10 days after the clones took good root, I defoliate at least 3 times every flowering cycle , It can and does increase yields , allowing the lower buds to get direct light. I built the ebb and flow setup and the vero 29 lights i'm using , I would say defoliation is a big issue with people who have never done it , but if you notice on a plant that the buds most exposed to light always get biggest. You need leaves for sure, but not as many as you would think , The entire plants leaves are only on the plant for a max of three weeks before i take them off, then in another 2 weeks or so I have to do it again. As for vertical space, I have none, it's only a 4 ft high tent and the ebb and flow takes up 1 foot of it , it's a new setup and new lights so it has been a learning experience all around, next time i will not let them veg for any more then about 5-7 days BB

Dr.funkenstien said:

I have been going over and over things, refining my system and getting what I can when I can. I have heard ideas about water chillers, I do plan on actually getting one when the money is right like I have been doing, I have heard about getting a mini-fridge and running a hose and a pump and blah blah we know where this goes. I recently inherited a mini-fridge from a fucked up roommate who bounced and nobody has heard from since, so....mine. I was wondering, would it be OK, or better, or more economically viable or whatever, just I had an idea and I'd like some input, what if instead of a hose coiled up and shoved in there I just filled it with water and sealed it up real good? Let it up in the little freezer part as well? Would that be fine you think or is there something I may be overlooking? Want as much knowledge as possible before committing to any holes drilled

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i thought of the mini fridge also. but after lots of reading, a mini fridge cant keep up with the heat / cooling transfer.. especially a bigger rdwc ( mines 32 gal ). i ended up using an old ac unit and making a chiller out of that. kicks on once every hour and 15 min, runs for 15 min. keeps my water temps from 65-68 degrees. only downside as it sits in my garage, and i live in a 4 season area. so when the outside temps drop to about 58, the ac unit wont kick on. so useless in the winter time..

Launchpad_Mcquack said:

i thought of the mini fridge also. but after lots of reading, a mini fridge cant keep up with the heat / cooling transfer.. especially a bigger rdwc ( mines 32 gal ). i ended up using an old ac unit and making a chiller out of that. kicks on once every hour and 15 min, runs for 15 min. keeps my water temps from 65-68 degrees. only downside as it sits in my garage, and i live in a 4 season area. so when the outside temps drop to about 58, the ac unit wont kick on. so useless in the winter time..

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Yeah I was wondering about that. I have 2 ac units in the basement, my wife gave me the go ahead to use one but the weathers about to start getting hot and I know her. She needs to stay cold. I'll just leave it at that. What kind of timer is there that I can program it to go by minute intervals like that?

Dr.funkenstien said:

Yeah I was wondering about that. I have 2 ac units in the basement, my wife gave me the go ahead to use one but the weathers about to start getting hot and I know her. She needs to stay cold. I'll just leave it at that. What kind of timer is there that I can program it to go by minute intervals like that?

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amazon has the style you're talking about. i just use standard 15min interval ones for both ac and the circulation pump.

OK I been working on things, was wondering, would it be more efficient to just run the nutrient water through the chiller or is running it through a pipe and placing the pipe in the residence better?

Dr.funkenstien said:

OK I been working on things, was wondering, would it be more efficient to just run the nutrient water through the chiller or is running it through a pipe and placing the pipe in the residence better?

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what kind of chiller are you talking about ?

the chillers designed for hydro run inline with your nutrient water.

diy chillers ( like mine) run a closed loop of fluid through a brewers coil, placed in your nutrient reservoir, then flow back to seperate coolant reservoir.

manufactured chillers - more expensive, more efficient and more convenient.

diy chiller- less efficient, very cheap, more design options, more of a hassle.

I looked into all of this a while ago and decided to just stick to the ice bottle in the reservoir technique.

The thermoelectric coolers, aka peltier coolers, recommended in this thread should probably be avoided, they run far less efficiently than a compressor type cooling unit (like a fridge or AC). Also, the 100$ ones on amazon can be be built DIY for a fraction of the cost. Just sandwich a peltier chip between two CPU coolers and you have a thermoelectric cooler.

Also if you do want to go with a diy chiller that uses tubes to carry cool liquids back and forth, try finding an automotive heater core at a local scrap yard, they're great little radiators.

Launchpad_Mcquack said:

what kind of chiller are you talking about ?

the chillers designed for hydro run inline with your nutrient water.

diy chillers ( like mine) run a closed loop of fluid through a brewers coil, placed in your nutrient reservoir, then flow back to seperate coolant reservoir.

manufactured chillers - more expensive, more efficient and more convenient.

diy chiller- less efficient, very cheap, more design options, more of a hassle.

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Well here's what I did. My mini fridge was sitting there not doing shit so.....I put a couple of milk jugs together, a juice bottle sideways in the freezer part all connected water pump in one of them. I got this I think it's aluminum water line. It's coated in plastic. Wasn't sure if the aluminum would have I'll effect on the water so I left it on. And that's coiled up in my res recirculating through the fridge. It's keeping it around 71. I was wondering if it's better to ditch the coil and just run the solution in and out the fridge