Hello all First time trying hydroponic and have a few Minor Questions. Just starting with a DWC system with Top Feed. Total water capacity is 25 Gallons. Everything is sitting on the floor in my basement and the reservoir is outside the tent. I'm running LED lights (OPTIC 6) One problem I'm having is keeping the water below 20 Degrees C. With the lights on the temperature will creep up to 22 C over the course of 12 hours. Now am I picking pepper out of Gnat shit and are these temperatures OK? This is all in my basement so I don't expect big swings. For the little I have to cool the liquid I'm not interested in buying a chiller and have been toying with some ideas. I figure a small 12inch by 18inch radiator out of an ATV with a couple of PC fans blowing through it would likely do the trick. Anyone ever try this? I know I could just throw a frozen pop bottle in there.
22 C is fine. Add some clorox to keep root rot at bay, 2 drops per day per gallon. Removing a few gallons per day, and replacing them with near freezing water can lower the res temp a degree or two C. In the past, I'd remove a gallon of res liquid a few times a day, put it in the freezer, then remove another gallon, and replace it with the cold gallon. Now I use clorox, and don't bother.
22° C isn't bad at all. If your really worried the ATV radiator sounds like a good idea. YouTube has some vids of diy water chillers using heat sinks and cpu fans and whatnot, but I think your reservoir size wouldn't work with those builds. Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
Hah...well I'm not sure If I'm worried or not...zero EXP with hydro. I think I'll play it out and see how it goes.. if 22 is not a horrible temperature then I should be good to go as the basement is actually cooler in warm weather cause the furnace doesn't run as much...and we in a major cold snap right now.
I have been using a do-it-yourself chiller for the last three years and it works so well that I feel I must share it. I've never re-engineered my Chiller to work in a reservoir but it would be rather simple to do for someone that had the initiative and a little bit of skill. Take a look see what you think. View attachment 5-gallon top-load water cooler conversion to water chiller.pdf