A few months ago, I lost a lot of shrimps due to high temperature (around 32°C).
So I decided to make an aquarium chiller for my nano (20L).
My requirements were :
- Noiseless
- Able to reduce by 5-7°C a 20L aquarium
- Economic electrically
- Part of the canister filtration system (no visual inconvenience)
- Not pricey (under 100$)
- Shrimp compatible (no copper used)
Becarefull : Aluminium is used to "exchange" the heat. It can be toxic if used in pH below 5.3
During my initial research, I found this interesting article : http://www.shine7.com/aquarium/chiller.htm
I changed the peltier module used, here are the calculation :
For a 400W Peltier, if I have 4.9V in input, and the local temperature is 32°C, the temperature of my 20L aquarium should be 24°C for 40W used.
Here are all the needed parts :
- Peltier module : TEC1-12726 (50x50mm 400W) around 20$US
- Aluminium Water cooling block (76x68x8mm)
I prefer this one over the classic 50mm one because it's bigger so better thermal exchange
- 12V 240W Power supply (transform AC to DC)
- 100W LED driver (0.8-28V output) (adjust the tension on the peltier module)
- 2 Fan speed controllers (3A DC-DC step down converter)
- 12V Thermostat (the chiller is working only when it needs to)
- Heat sink (Noctua NH-D14)
Based on http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2789&page=4 , this heat sink is perfect
- A 50x50mm copper sheet to make the connection between the heat sink and peltier module. The peltier is bigger than the heat sink base, so I thought it's better to have this sheet to reduce the heat of the Peltier
- 6mm silicon pipe (it's the diameter of the water cooling block)
- 6=>12 water pipe coupler
- Thermal paste
- Electrical cable
All the parts together :
The total cost is around 100$US (greatly depends on the heat sink, i bought mine 2nd hand)
The final build :
Just started to make some test, it's working perfectly!
The only drawback is that it reduce the outflow of my canister filter.
If you have any questions :)