Chiller set up questions

[Burrower]

Greetings! As a long time lurker of the boards, but infrequent poster (I should change that you know!) I have some questions for you regarding chiller set up.

I'm about to purchase an inline chiller to help with soaring tank temperatures (averaging around 83 on cool days..I hate to think what is ahead). My 65 gallon reef tank is sumpless (everything is pretty much hanging on the back), so I need to find a way to get water to the chiller and back. Try as I might, I haven't found too much detail. Will I need an overflow to get water out of the tank and to the chiller? If so, is the retrun pump on the outlet side of the chiller? And what is the best way to get water back in the tank? What pump would you recommend? I have no holes drilled at all, so it will need to return back in from the top. Any creative tips or suggestions on how to have it return other than just a silly vinly tube stuck back in the water?

I'm leaning heavily to a current USA dual stage 1/4 hp chiller. I welcome comments and suggestions regarding this pricey purchase.

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Krish]

You can either use this opportunity to add in a sump which can be beneficial in more than one way or you could probably setup an over the tank closed loop with a cover hiding the plumbing like I did on my old 75gal setup (if you don't want to see any pipes etc) and just use an external pump to circulate water between the chiller and the tank. I'll dig up a few pictures of how I did my closed loop to see if the idea helps you any. Give me a few...

 

[Krish]

Here are a few pics of the cover...

Attachemnt 1 shows the cover I made to match my backround
Attachment 2 and 3 shows the cover in the tank hiding the plumbing for the closed loop (suction side)
Attacment 4 shows a full shot with the cover sitting in the right corner of the tank


As for how to make a closed loop over the tank, there are many ways to go about it. The only difference between a closed loop designed for strictly flow and one designed for use with a chiller will be that you will just have to plumb the chiller in between the pump and the tank. So what you will have is water will come from the tank, into the pump, into the chiller, out of the chiller and then into the tank through some sort of nozzle (lockline is good to use). Here is a link to an old thread of mine where I made a closed loop http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13588&highlight=diy+closed+loop and here is where I got the general idea from on how to make one http://www.melevsreef.com/closedloop.html . Justa few ideas...Hope it helps some

 

[NaH2O]

As Krish said - you'll need an external pump to draw water in from the tank, through the pump, through the chiller, and back to the tank. You'll need to make a pump intake that sits in the tank, then the plumbing goes to your pump....to your chiller.....and back to the tank again.

Hope this helps!

 

[Burrower]

Thanks for the replies! Time to start drawing out designs

What would you use for mesh on the tube leaving the tank (to keep critters from taking a chilly ride)? Any recommendations?

 

[Krish]

I used an intake strainer that you can either buy in a "slip" or "threaded" version and attached it to the PVC. Here is a link http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merc...Product_Code=BH15-STR&Category_Code=Bulkheads (there are other sizes as well) Other than that, some people will just put a cap on the end of the pvc in the water and drill a bunch of holes in the submerged pipe like in that link I sent you from my previous post on melev's reef

 

[NaH2O]

I'd use an intake screen. You'll also want to think about how you are going to prime your pump when you get it started.