Anyone else running a water chiller? I have a question about nutrient changes...

[ellz]

Hey GWE community! I recently bought an ActiveAqua 1/10HP water chiller and installed it but I have one question...when doing nutrient changes, how do you flush out the stuff in the actual chiller? Basically it's driven by my pump and once the pump is off, the water stops moving. Well, there is still a good bit of water in the chiller because it was flowing through it when the pump was turned off. I'm basically trying to avoid leftover nutrients going back in to my fresh batch when I do the change. I can't use the pump to drain it because I would end up burning out the pump when it stopped sucking in water. So anyone have any tips?

 

[gbauto]

My 4 site, 40 gal UC style system is the same way.
I can only remove approx.70% of the system volume during dumps.
It hasn't caused any issues for me.

 

[ellz]

What about when flushing at the end?

 

[dphipps1020]

I don't use a water chiller but I would say dump a little fresh water in and run it so it kicks out the nutrient water, empty and repeat if necessary.

 

[ellz]

I had considered that too. That way even if there is plain pH'ed water left in there, it shouldn't hurt anything.

 

[dphipps1020]

Exactly. I personally won't really worry about it until the flush but I also have just been topping off the water instead of cleaning it completely. This is the first time for me doing it like this but the plants don't seem to mind one bit whether it's all fresh or if there's a little old water still. They actually seem to be growing better for me than when I was cleaning and doing fresh water. I also don't add pH down when I top off. Reason for that is my pH drops as time goes on. My tap water pH is about 7.5-8 so when I top off it balances out again. Picture of my biggest hydro girl, only issue she has is she wants to touch the light. I keep telling her she'll get burned but she's not listening. It reminds me of how mosquitoes are attracted to bug zappers.

 

[gbauto]

I just dump the system a few times with water until the ec gets below 0.2
When the run is finished, I mix up some pool shock with water and let that circulate for a few days. Gets everything nice and clean.