Chiller

After a year and a half of running a supposedly cold water aquarium at room temperature (usually above 20C), I have finally bought a chiller! I found it very hard to choose between the several available brands, with mixed messages on forums about noise, ventilation and size. In the end I decided on a D-D DC300 chiller; however, the supplier was out of stock and suggested to take the 750 Watt model instead. As it was not that much more expensive and as running a larger chiller at shorter intervals is more econonomical (and also after a year of indecision I of course could not just wait for a couple of extra weeks), the D-D DC750 chiller it was. I ordered an Eheim compact +2000 pump (1000 to 2000 l/hr) to go with it online and got some insulated tubing from my local stoner hydroponics guy. When the chiller arrived it was a lot bigger than I thought. I placed it in a kitchen cabinet out of sight, and hopefully hearing, and with help from friends drilled two holes in the wall to the living room, to lead the tubing up to the tank:

(I still have to drill holes in the surface for the two electric cables.) The chiller is set at 17C, which results in about 14-15C in the aquarium. With a lower temperature setting, ‘tank sweating’ (condensation) occurs. So the temperature is still at the upper end of native tanks, but I think (hope) it might make the difference for some species of algae and some sublittoral species. The chiller only comes on about four times per 24 hours for a half hour and the noise is not too bad. The inside of the cabinet heats up quite a bit, but I think it should not be a problem. I had planned to fit the outflow through one of the two holes drilled in the back compartment for the two Red Sea Max pumps, but the tubing was too stiff/the compartment too small to make the angle. I have now just tie-wrapped the tube into the tank:

I still have to find a proper solution to close the two holes, as I do not want the water to be sucked into the back compartment that way (bypassing the filter/skimmer). I have set the pump at 2000 l/hr which (with the loss because of chiller and tubing) is still not very strong (the two RSM pumps had a combined 1100 l/hr). I might re-install one of the original pumps to get some extra flow directed at the water surface. Next project: finally installing my LEDs!