HYDRO Choosing a water chiller, flow rate

[Bartholomew]

Hi,

I'm looking for advice on water chillers. I'm in a weird spot where the volume of water in my system is around 275 liters but the flow rate of my water pump is 5800 liters per hour.

Cheaper chillers that are specified for lower volumes around 200-400 liters of water have a min/max specified flow rate around 400-800 liters per hour. The more expensive and larger ones are specified for up to couple of thousands of liters in volume and flow rate between 3000-5000 liters per hour.

Obviously I can't dish out a couple of grands for the expensive models, so I was wondering if it's ok to choose one of the cheapers ones even though the flow rate of my system is much larger.

Will the loss of cooling efficiency drop dramatically?

Anyone with experience?

Thanks!

[Bartholomew]

[gbauto]

I think the solution would be to use a dedicated pump/recirc system for just the chiller.
That's what I ended up doing on my 100L UC system.
I run a 750gph mag drive for circulation and a spare 396gph pump that runs solution through the chiller.
I originally used the 750 to run it through everything and wasn't satisfied with the flow rate.
By separating the recirc and chiller, it allowed me to maintain adequate flow in the system while slowing down the flow through the chiller.
I run a 1/4 hp Active Aqua and it works very well.

[Bartholomew]

Gotcha, thanks!

My return line from the pump has a split, one goes into the main pot and the other is meant for top feed as you can see in the picture. I think I'll be able to manage using the top feed line for the chiller,

Gonna order a chiller with some overhead in terms of power. The Hailea HC-500A seems to be a good and fitting option

http://hailea.com/e-hailea/product1/HC-500A.htm

[Bartholomew]

The temps shot up today, the outside temperature was 28-30 degrees celsius. Water temps went up to 25-26. Thank god I had invested in a UV clarifier. I'd probably be up to my neck in algae etc by now. There is slight algae growth atm. UV has been running 24h a day.