Nutter

I wouldn't go with a car radiator. As Nate pointed out you would need quite a lot of airflow around the radiator for it to work & the cost would rival a chiller anyway.
To avoid jumpers with the lid off try to stretch a stocking over your tank. If that doesn't work I'm sure you can get some shade cloth or some such mesh & fit it over the tank.
I'm not sure of the electrical details of how to do it but I have a mate that has a chiller for his tank & he converted it to 12v so that it doesn't use much power. He's an electrician & knows much more about that sort of stuff than me. Perhaps that could be something for you to look at. Otherwise it's going to be the same suggestions you have been given in your other post about this. IMO, if the heat is coming from your DIY canister, then just go spend the money on a proper canister & be done with it.

eiginh

That's going extreme with the radiator. How about just leaving the top open and having fans blow horizontally on the surface.

speed0factory

thanks for your reply and i'm using a powerhead pump, do you think it's ok to use this or maybe it's time to change the pump any suggestion

speed0factory

thank you all for giving me so much info about this i really appreciate it, i think i would just redesgin the canister filter, make some opening on the lid for the fans, and install the fans.

Then i'll see how low the temperature will go, thanks again to you guys.
really helped me alot.

Oil_Fan

I am familiar with the water cooling used in computers. I don't believe they'd be a good idea for the same reason that one for a car wouldn't be. Again the fins on it are made of metal to allow for better heat dissipation.

Now what you could is a something along the lines of an algae scrubber (see the DIY forum here) with a low rpm fan to move air over it. That would achieve both heat dissipation and controlling nitrates and phosphates. I'm guessing you don't have sump since you have a canister type filter but it may give you ideas.

Now here's another thing...do you really need the canister filter? What about doing a overflow box into a DIY sump.

The good news is there are options for you without the cost of a chiller. And never mind they aren't exactly cheap to run either.

speed0factory

ok, i'll try to use the low rpm fan and see how will this help. Moreover, i'll try to remove my ball control valve, so that the pump will not do extra work on pumping the water out.

Anyway thanks for you help.

Tavel

why are there two threads on this?

speed0factory

i'm very sorry about this, it's suppose to be one is finding a idea on how to cool my tank, the other is to find way to do a chiller.

and is it possible to close one thread

aquarist48

Hello Speed. I've merged your two threads. Try and limit one thread per topic so it doesn't get so confusing
Thanks!
Ken

speed0factory

thank you so much, really appreciated. i keep that in mind, thanks again

Tavel

as others have pointed out, the car radiator is a no go. You're right, most plumbing uses copper pipes, but are soldered with lead-free solder. It's safe for us because an oxide layer develops on the inside of the pipes...however that takes months. We can safely drink the copper salts produced in that time, but they're highly toxic to aquatic animals.

Perhaps you could look into air conditioner condenser, I THINK they're made of aluminum which should be safe.

I would still put the most effort into the fan. Follow the engineering motto "keep it simple!"

The other great engineering motto is "don't build what you can buy."

So seriously, just BUY a canister filter because yours is causing a lot of headaches. It's a fun project, but it's starting to cost you a lot more than it's saving.

speed0factory

hi all,

i had found the rootcause and had solved it.

Firstly, the rootcause is by my DIY canister filter. Due to the inlet of the filter is stuck with junks (fish reminding, food, plants and others), my pump needed more power to force the water out, therefore the heat of the pump rises and cause some of my plant to die too. See the picture below:


See the red net which is attach to the inlet? it stop all the junk there and causing the water flow to become slow and heat is produce by the pump (sorry about my english)

Thus, i remove my DIY Canister filter (just like what you've advised) and i replace with a hang back waterfall filter. by doing this my temperature drop from 34 to 29 Degree C.

Secondly, i think that i can go futher with a heat sink attached to the back of the waterfall filter as shown in picture below:

with this i brought the temperature down by 2 to 4 Degree C.
then i go futher by using fans, one of the fan is blowing in to the tank and the other sucking the air out. with this i brought the temperature down by another 2 to 3 Degree C. see picture below:


all this idea is from fishlore, i just combined all the useful idea and bring it together thanks guys.

And i thanks fishlore fan and guys for helping me out with this problem.