Setting up your new Chiller - Be very careful!!!

[kkw30806]

Hi all... I just want to share this experience with all of you guys on my new chiller. I bought my chiller couple days ago and I was very excited and wanted to install it as quickly as I can for my fish. So, I set it up and left it on the default setting (77 degrees) temperature and left it running over night.

It worked sooooo wellll... that I almost KILL all my fish. They were laying on and between the sand bed and the rocks. What happen was I forgot to check the temperature first before I use it. Over night it went too cool for my fish. I guess they got use to the normal room temperature between 78 to 80 in my house and suddenly the temperature dropped to between 75 to 77. They caught a cold... I guess.

Right now... my fish is recovering from the cold. My blue tang and maroon clown are doing better (start swimming around again... just talk to my wife). Still waiting for the yellow tang to swim again. Anyway... This is a good lesson to learn for me and maybe other considering buying a chiller for the summer. Please be very careful and not to forget to compare the tank temperature and the chiller temperature. I guess I was too excited to set it up and forgot about it. Hope all my fish are doing okay when I get home later on today... (GOD BLESS).... Again... any commons and suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Jack

 

[minireefer]

ouch hope all goes well from them

 

[bkv1997]

Its a good idea to also calibrate the temperature of your chiller... should be in the instructions.

I would also HIGHLY recommend you ordering a few spare fuses.... As you will not be able to find them locally they are super small and high amps. If they blow and you don't have a spare you will have just the opposite effect they are use to 78 then it goes to 83 for a couple days.

JBJ will send you 10 for 10$ i believe. Just one of the things I learned the hard way.

 

[kkw30806]

YES... definitely will be on my to do list. Btw... how often do they blow out?
THanks for the heads up Brandon,
Jack

 

[kkw30806]

YEs... Luckily they are ALL doing okay. It took them almost 2 days to recuperate. Definitely don't want to go through this again... :| hahaha...

 

[kkw30806]

Hi all... enclosed are some of the pictures of my fish (doing much better now), current tank and chiller.

Thanks
Jack

 

[bkv1997]

Storms.. to many things plugged into a 15 amp circuit etc....

I probably only had 4 or 5 pop over the last 2 years, but when they do you need one and i think they only come with one spare.

Brandon

 

[jhnrb]

BK I'm interested about the fuses blowing. why do you think the fuses are blowing. power surges, lack of ventilation and over heat, ??? just curious as to what you think is causing the fuses to blow. I do agree however, that spare fuses are a very good idea. great pics and very nice looking system KW.

 

[bkv1997]

Before I ran my seperate 20 Amp lines on GFCIs the two ballasts, chiller, pumps etc was to much for the normal 15 Amp circuit so there were a couple occasions that it blew due to that probably.

After they sent me the modified power plug i mentioned in an earlier post that no longer has the on/off swicth it hasn't blown at all, so i'm sure it was mostly all tied back to a falty switch design.

However I would still recommend having extras on hand as they aren't a common size and when you need one you need it and they are hard to get.

Brandon