Need help on cooling

[bill]

does anyone know of a fairly inexpensive cooling unit i could get or make to use on a 20 gal tank? my ac died and i don't like the water temp changes with the ice bottles.

 

[dane]

a pretty cheap cooling way is, move to basement(if you have one) or use ice packs

 

[bill]

was thinking about making a water cooler, using a bunch of hose wrapped in foil placed in a foam cooler with a few computer heat-sinks on the foil. if the heat will transfer it will work like a little radiator. if not i just made a really expensive water circulator. has any one made a cooling system or attempted to make one? or atleast be able to tell me what not to do?

(Message edited by beejium on August 29, 2006)

 

[simon]

Cooling packs that are "box" shaped are extremely efficient.

 

[abrahm]

Despite the constant recurrence of this question and the necessity of keeping newts cool it seems that unfortunately there are really only two feasible ideas cost wise: using icepacks/frozen bottles to directly cool the water or using an AC unit to cool the room temp. I'm still interested in using peltier devices but I don't know if the price will be worth the cooling power.

 

[samuel]

i asked a guy here if he could build me a sistem to cool the tank of my newts and he todl me he could use the A/C sistem of a car, but it would be a little expesive but, would be only for the tank not for the entire room, so maybe that could help.

 

[jennifer]

On the axie forum, I've seen photos of a low-tech cooler made using an insulated cooler that is kept stocked with ice water, plus a pump that pumps the tank water through a long coil of tubing in the ice water. The people using this kind of system say it works well, but the obvious drawback is keeping it stocked with ice all the time.

I think what you are proposing, bill, is similar, but I don't know how a computer heat sink works. If it is some kind of Peltier device, then you wouldn't want to have it inside a cooler.

 

[al]

Sometimes a cheap window a/c unit is best if your newts are in a small room. If my central a/c went out, I would opt for that. It is always good to have around as a back up. When you think of the money spent on some systems, this may be cheaper. Of course the primitive cooler with coiled hose and ice method seems to work for many keepers, but appears labor intensive. You only have the option of cooling one tank as well. It would not be efficient for all of my setups. I'm looking for a small window unit that is used and I can buy cheap. This would be for back up.

 

[jeff]

My mom had knee surgury and they gave her this really cool thing to take home, I will need to see if its around here somehow, but its exactly what we all have been talking about for the cooling thing.

Its a small cooler, with a pump in it powered by an air pump, that circulates water through a flexible wrap. I have had newts that would migrate to a flexible ice pack and lay on it for hours but this would be even better, as it wouldn't be "freezing" just cold.