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Swamp cooling doubleing as a reservoir chiller

Graff420

Graff420

New member
Ok my thought is if a swamp cooler cools the air by breaking down water and passing air through then the water should inturn be as cold as the air i would like anyidea or information on if anyone has every tryied this ov made a swamp cooler imma see how cold it makes the water and then im going to use it as my reservoir chiller ok what i mean by this is to put an 80ft stainless steel wort chiller into the swamp cooler so the nute water and swamp cooler water will never exchange so i dont need to worry about the mold fungi and algae growing in my res water
 
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Hi Graff420 never used a swamp cooler but are you going to run coils into the reservoir or are you thinking of pumping the reservoir water with nutes though ?
I would think if you did that then your nutes would be all over the place because of heavy evaporation . If you pump resivoir water through the core it might work but I think a few guys/gals/women have tried it all here . There is a thread that is using a peltier Colling unit which is working good but haven't checked in a week . Good luck do a search in forums on cooling and you will get more ideas . Sorry I can't be more help .
 
$50 Peltier water cooling
By sammy

Search for this thread might help I would put the link in for you but don't know how .
 
Thanks and yea iv been thinking on it more and more what im thinking tho is as long as the water reaches 68 im pretty sure i can get a wort chiller with the right water pump to pump my res water through slowly ebough to chill but fast enough to acutally cool the res the it should be plauseable with the right set up i want to find a way to do it without adding anymore amps or watts being pulled i already have the pumps running so i figgur i can readjust and get my res temps down without pulling extra electricty do you get what i mean or am i way to stoned to make sence?
 
If you like to tinker anything is worth a try, lol

1) The swamp cooler media is going to leech your nutes and probably mess with PH, though you can likely get a neutral filter.

2) Air is gonna pass through the water dragging everything in the air into your solution, who knows what nasties you might get, plus it's probably gonna mess with the PH

3) The area your actually cooling is going to be sprayed with nutrient solution, you'll have to watch for molds and such in the area since it's warm, you're upping the humidity and feeding the spores

4) I'm not sure how breathing nute vapor is but I can't imagine it's healthy

5) you'll have to watch your water levels because you're throwing the water into the air, that means more nutes, more water, more PH problems.

Hopefully I'm missing something but personally it just doesn't seem like it will work, or be so much hassle, extra work, money, etc, that it just isn't worth it. And if you're married about the time the spouse sees salt stains all over the furniture, walls and drapes is about the time you and the plants end up outside, lol.

I'd love to see it done and made to work though!
 
Something that might work though:

run copper tubing from the res, put an in-line pump outside of the res, drill a hole in the side of the swamp cooler vent run the copper tubing into the vent and make a coil right in the vent flue and then out another hole on the opposite side of the vent and dump back into the res.

It'd be pretty cheap and quick to make, the largest expense would be the pump. Other than that it's a length of soft copper, a couple of fittings and done. If it doesn't work it can be removed easily and quickly. It would eliminate most of the potential issues though, if it worked.
 
Yup thats my idea probably should have explained more im going to use 50 to 80 ft of 1/4 in stainless steel tubeing coil it up inside the 5gallon bucket swamp cooler iv made which is puching air at 69 with the res water temp holding a couple degrees cooler just tested the water temp and its 66°water puching air at 70° i think a better fan will cool more bust if i can get about 80 ft of stainless steel tubeing i can pretty much steal the cool from my swamp cooler by coiling all 80 ft inside the bucket running vinal tubeing to connect the coiled tubeing to my res and once i find the sweet spot on the water pump i should be able to move enough water to hold my res temps at 67 to 68 that and if i up the size and use something bigger than a 5 gallon swamp cooler i should beable to cool a bigger res if need be but i gotta save up to buy tubeing and im a 23 yr old stay at home daddy so all i got is tinkering right now lmao only issuse is im color blind so not really good with nute toxicity or deficiantcy so i cant really play with ph or nutes in the air because if it harms my girl i wont be able to see her leaves turning color lmao
 
I may have just figured out a way to cool my nutes.

copper coils inside a round beverage cooler filled with ice and water. Using the pump already inside my res run a drip line to and from the cooler and connect the ends to the copper coil.

I have 5 reservoirs so 5 coils and just place the cooler relatively close to the tanks.
 
Yea that works but you must refill with ice every few hours im trying to find a way to get that result but with out haveing to refill with ice
 
What about putting in a small venturi (a liitle ways off the pump put in a smaller orifac or small slip fit ) that takes a large amount of liquid speeds up the water pressure and spray on the top of resivoir . Works using the Vernulli effect if I remember my a/c work where you take a low pressure or volume liquid and speed it up to basically a high pressure stream or even mist that causes cooling . But an a/c unit turns low pressure liquid to a high pressure gas to cool through a evaporation coil . just a though but a small peltier unit will work on 12 volts and about 3 amps
 
Or put in a few misting heads in the reservoir spraying your roots maybe that would cause a few degree drop but would contain the nutes spray a little but would still have evaporation
 
I'm thinking possibly a mini fridge would do the trick.

I have one in my workshop where I store my hydroguard. Bucket of water with the coils submerged inside the fridge.

Maybe I'll find a cheap one to try it out with
 
The mini freege idea is good if your useing metal coils pop it in the freezer compartment and run you water through idk maybe ill just buy the ice probe for now intill i tinker up my own version of something lmao
 
I found myself watching YouTube videos to learn how to make my own copper coils,

Pretty sure the little fridge I have already would work since it froze my hydroguard solid.
 
Just be sure to move water fast enough it wont freeze and id say use stainless steel coils idk i cant seem to get a stright answer if copper is ok or not with nute water when ever i do my research
 
Yea thats why i figgur stainless steel tubeing it wont leach into your water it should do good being only a means of transport with out adding anything to your water the only problem is finding the tubeing and a way to coil it or spend the decent penny on a good size stainless steel wort chiller which will come pre coiled for you
 
I'd check the water temp in the cooler first. I'm not familiar with bucket swampers, but in principle dragging the air through the water transfers heat to the water from the air. So while the outgoing air is cool, the water is warmer.

Just something to check before investing, if you haven't already, it may also affect, warm, the cold air coming out, because the swamper will be using warmer water to try and cool with. Though it may be so small a difference to not matter in either case, but thats why I suggested putting the coil in the actual out vent.
 
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