Simple DIY Water Chiller for Hydro!

WizHigh

WizHigh

Well-Known Member
Member of the Month
December 2012
Hey everyone Ive been battling water temps as well you other growers. So I came up with this DIY water chiller. You will hook this up to your main res so for those with a RO system you will need to run your good water into the chiller which will keep it full.

Any who things you will need:

1x Home Depot leak sealed bucket with lid.

1x 1/2" rubber grommet

1/2" air tubing. The length will depend on how far you run the hose's to your main res as well as it being fed back into the chiller.

1x shut off control valve that fits 1/2" tubing.

"X" amount of ice packs or frozen water bottles. More the better and less you will have to change them out. I used 6 and it kept the chiller below and around 40F which kept my RDWC system at 50-60F for the whole day.

Airline hose with air stones & air pump.



Ok so what you do now is cut a 5/8 size whole in the bottom of the bucket and insert the 1/2" rubber grommet. After insert the control valve and hook up tubing to your system as you would like.

IMG_1369_1_.JPG



2nd drill holes threw the top lid to insert the airline(s) with air stones. Fill with freezing cold water as much as you like. You can do this by adding alot of ice to the bucket after filling. Then add you ice packs. Remember the more the better. After seal the lid on the bucket tightly making sure there are no air leaks.

IMG_1370_1_.JPG



AND JUST LIKE THAT YOUR READY TO LET YOUR CHILLER RIP :)


I know some of you are like how will this work and keep my water at cooler temps. Well to explain it, I really dont know how and what makes this thing actually work. I just know from the air pressure building inside the bucket will push the water down as well as keeping the water really cold. I ran into this by accident. I was standing on my main res after adding ice packs to lower my light. Next thing I just heard a loud rumbling from the bucket. I guess the pressure was building up. So I looked at the temps and what do ya know they were dropping by the second. I so happen to leave it untouched came back 3hrs later and the water temps were still at 40F. Im running a 4 site RDWC system so thats alot of water to keep at 40F. Still running strong after 8hrs.

Any who I just made a separate bucket and voila!
 
BLUE: Frozen Ice Packs/Water

YELLOW: Pressure build up which pushes the water down and into the main res

PINK:Connectors/Disconnect parts as well as drainage


When using DIY chiller make sure the flow valve is off so the water from the main res will not back flow into the chiller before filling with ice and ice packs. Once filled connect the straight valve which is shown top of diagram in "PINK" then tightly close the lid. Once full pressure build up is reached you then can open the flow valve to the main res. Remember make sure there are no air leaks in the chiller.


P.S. You can modify this any way you like. I was thinking of adding a 20-30gal water pump to the chiller for pushing the water back up and out into the main res instead of the original drawing which is just a cheaper way to do it. To get down to the basic of it your just creating & maintaining a cold environment

IMG_1386_1_.JPG
 
There's an equation in physics which if I could remember just now that paid to this and bit worried about pressure building up. Anyone who has the knowledge to break this down and see if it can be used, for more than just convection?
 
What about same idea but use a stand up round ice chest that would have your res temps longer cost a few bucks but with this style of system the maitaince i.e. keeping the water chilled adding the ice is your weakness so the less you have to change your ice out the easier it is on you.
 
I will definitely have to try this at some point. I did find that I was running into problems with the water warming up due to the submersible pump. ( although I did have it running continuously and not on timer). So I am going to try with a timer first and then compare the rise in temp and then I will try this.
 
I was gonna make a diy water chiller out of my mini fridge, especially the freezer part, but I would have several reservoirs throughout the fridge. I moved on from recirculated hydro before starting on that project, making the chiller uneccesary, since water coming out of the tap is already cold. Im kind of glad there arent two holes in the side of my otherwise good mini fridge right now, but it would have been interesting to see how it worked, My water temps could have really used it!.
 
jimb0b said:
I was gonna make a diy water chiller out of my mini fridge, especially the freezer part, but I would have several reservoirs throughout the fridge. I moved on from recirculated hydro before starting on that project, making the chiller uneccesary, since water coming out of the tap is already cold. Im kind of glad there arent two holes in the side of my otherwise good mini fridge right now, but it would have been interesting to see how it worked, My water temps could have really used it!.
Click to expand...

I made one with mini fridge. Just coil about 100 feet or so of tubing inside fridge. Like You've might of seen! that's how you get cold water on the outside door of a fridge. They coil a lot of tubing inside
 
Back
Top Bottom