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Water Cooled Growers Unite!

Is that one of those Ebay heat exchangers?
I've been using pond pumps from lowes, that way if it craps out I just go and exchange it! I think it's time I went with a more industrial unit though, have to check those out.

Hey Budley, yup the heat exchanger is the type they sell for outdoor wood furnaces, they're 4" thick, come in many sizes, and do a pretty good heat transfer.

The only reason I needed the inline Blueline pumps is they're much higher head pressures for long hose runs and/or elevations. I use Danner mag drives(probably similar to Lowe's) anywhere I can get away with them, but most won't exceed 12ft or so head while the Blueline's in the picture are rated 25ft and 28ft head. Iwaki's are top of the line but Blueline's are a better deal. Both are designed for aquariums and are very quiet and efficient. There are a lot of Iwaki copies out there, Aquacave.com is a great source. Another perk of an inline pump is the motor isn't adding any heat to the water like a submersible.

Have you got a catalog from http://www.aquaticeco.com/ ? Their website is weak but the print catalog is great! You'll love it, all kinds of interesting stuff for the fish farming industry but very applicable to the techie grower. Also http://www.usplastic.com/ they've got every tube fitting imaginable, also weak site great catalog.
 
Those pumps sound nice.

Haven't heard of those catalogs. Going to go order them now. I love shit like that, especially good reading right after a morning coffee and blunt!
 
Got to tell you, the water cooled dehuey is the best 30 bucks I've spent on my garden. My AC barely runs and my 15 gallon condensate res fills regularly. I would guess my power consumption has dropped 30% as a result.
 
Got to tell you, the water cooled dehuey is the best 30 bucks I've spent on my garden. My AC barely runs and my 15 gallon condensate res fills regularly. I would guess my power consumption has dropped 30% as a result.

Hey BD, great idea on the cooled DH. I'd copy that one if I didn't actually need the heat from my DH's up here in the cold north. All of the sudden with winter here that outdoor cooling rez I built is too effective with water entering fresca's down to 50 deg.

Good to see your journal also. I laugh at how technology laden my setup is also. More tubes and wires than in a submarine, lol.

Do keep us up on any new innovations. Fun to see.

P
 
Hey BD, great idea on the cooled DH. I'd copy that one if I didn't actually need the heat from my DH's up here in the cold north. All of the sudden with winter here that outdoor cooling rez I built is too effective with water entering fresca's down to 50 deg.

Good to see your journal also. I laugh at how technology laden my setup is also. More tubes and wires than in a submarine, lol.

Do keep us up on any new innovations. Fun to see.

P

It's back to the drawing board on that one. With a full load on it my DH started to overheat. I need to put a bigger fan in it to force the air through the heat exchanger. I also need the heat to run my AC to help with the DH during peak hours.

Also learning that the telaire doesn't like the sulpher burner!
 
It's back to the drawing board on that one. With a full load on it my DH started to overheat. I need to put a bigger fan in it to force the air through the heat exchanger. I also need the heat to run my AC to help with the DH during peak hours.

Also learning that the telaire doesn't like the sulpher burner!

Yup it's a balancing act with all the environmental stuff.

I had a couple Telaire based CO2 controllers for a while and had endless troubles with their Telaire units, froze up all the time and had to restart often. My IGS and Sentinel units have been so much better, definitely recommend those brands if you ever need a new one.

P
 
Yup it's a balancing act with all the environmental stuff.

I had a couple Telaire based CO2 controllers for a while and had endless troubles with their Telaire units, froze up all the time and had to restart often. My IGS and Sentinel units have been so much better, definitely recommend those brands if you ever need a new one.

P

Mine does freeze about once a month. I don't know much about the IGS but don't care for the sentinal gear. It is nice stuff, I just don't like that it is all Chinese built.
 
Mine does freeze about once a month. I don't know much about the IGS but don't care for the sentinal gear. It is nice stuff, I just don't like that it is all Chinese built.

My Telaire's would freeze weekly or more, sometimes with the co2 gen on, found my room over 5000ppm a couple times.

The IGS's are made in Canada, I've run an IGS-061 for a few years now without a single freeze, quality stuff.
 
I think it has something to do with the automatic background calibration. Mine rarely do it when it's off. They for some reason like 24vAC as well.
 

Skinny Leaf

Well-known member
Veteran
Room Dimensions

5' x 5' x 8'
Liquid + Air Cooled 600W HPS (will be adding a second 600W HPS)
360 cfm fan
1/4hp Chiller
(2) 550gph Mag-Drive water Pumps
10 gallon resevoir(upgrade to 30 gallon after testing)

First, I would like to thank all the new growers who give up after a couple grows. This is how I aquired the equipment. He did one grow battling temp problems. Tried it the second time with all this equipment new and gave up. So we basically got it to use for nada. Maybe a little finished product.

As you can see in the pics I have the one vessel hanging. I had two but that is a whole different story. I will have two once the room is complete. I plumbed all this water around the room before really doing some investigation. Of course, now I have some questions. Really just one. While the room stays at ambient temp of the outside air, that is going to get hot here real quick. So I need to infuse some cool air occasionally to control temps.

The question is: Can I take something like an Ice Box and plumb the input water to the heat exchanger from the same manifold that feeds the light vessels? Or whatever other suggestion I can get to use what I have.





 
Yes, you can do that. You'll want your water just above the dew point so you don;t get condensation. Probably be easier to just allow the house AC to handle it.
 

Skinny Leaf

Well-known member
Veteran
When I laid out the room I had no intention of doing water cooling. But, I got nixed on the window A/C during the build. So the WC equipment was collecting dust and I used it. I have the chiller sitting on 68 F for the one light vessel and there is very little heat coming off the bulb. The room is still staying the same temp as what is being drawn into the room. The chiller is cycling about every 20 minutes the way I have it set up now.

More than likely I have 2 portable A/C's now and will throw one of those in there. I definitely have a humidity problem. I would have to buy a dehumidifier or use the A/C unit I have. I should have everything I need to also do the heat exchanger without buying anything.
 

NorCal

Member
Veteran
So sorry if I didn't get back in here and answer any questions. However I just found a bunch of these lights in my garage. I'm not doing anything with them. I want to say I have 8-12 that are salvageable. They would need to be repaired with new seals and gaskets some even need new glass. They are pretty fucked but I did pay good chunk of change for them. These were the liquid lumens version so I want to say with reflectors I paid about$450-$500 each light. If anyones in the bay area come pick this shit up I want it out of here, if not it's gojng to the dump so that means FREE. The reflectors themselves are about $125 each and there's 10 of them. Please PM me if your interested. Kf there's a separate forum for this please let me know. Thank you
 

InjectTruth

Active member
Surprised I didnt see this earlier. There's some good stuff in this thread, https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=247165.

theoretically, with a large enough volume of water, enough radiant surface area, and a sufficient flow rate, one shouldnt even need a chiller.

Adding another heat exchanger inside your hot water heater tank a la hybrid systems will also remove the need for your hot water heater to kick on. Thermal energy in the form of hot water can be stored for MONTHS. Thermal Mass is the key.
 
Just finishing my build out of my bloom room. 10 x 16 panda wrapped with a 2 ton trane water based heat pump using 100g res with a a/c condenser to cool water. Starting with 6k hps, might add 4 400mh 10k for the last month of bloom. Running sealed with co2. Soil mix is, 50% EWC, 25% coco and 25% perlite. Brewed tea's is all i use to feed, just change guano's though out cycle.
 
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