It’s very warm in the summer and cold in the winter. I want to set up a dwc grow, but know I will run into heat issues. Any thoughts on running the grow in a 10 gallon water cooler, or large ice chest? I’m thinking the reservoir will stay cooler for longer? I would like to dump an ice probe style aquarium cooler and call it good, but what is the most efficient option? What would electricity usage look like running a 1/10 or 1/15 hp chiller for 2x 5gal buckets? What about 2x 15 gal reservoirs? I’m in a 2x4 tent with 320 watts of quantum boards. No a/c being run in the room, and it’s killing me. It’s already hard to control temps, so I’m thinking it would be easier and cheaper to cool a couple reservoirs to chill the roots than to cool the 1800 cu ft space that my tents are in. I figure a 67* reservoir in a 88* tent is better than my 5 gal soil bags for indoor summer growing.
Here's an attempt on my part to beat the heat.. It worked really well, but changing the frozen water bottles got to be a pia.. I bought an Iceprobe, and a ink bird hot/cold thermostat.. I plan on using the ice probe in the a 10gal Gott water cooler as a reservoir and 2 5gal igloos to grow in.. There are no electric water pumps or air stones.. The way it's plumbed with a standing water column allows the drip ring to pull water directly from the reservoir.. Gravity return to the reservoir. Two Igloos will circulate the 10 gal reservoir once an hour.. I don't have any pic of the igloo grow.. Here's a pic of two modified Waterfarms using a 5 gal bucket as a shared reservoir.. It was a winter grow, didn't need any extra cooling.. General hydroponic waterfarm
At that point I might as well freeze blocks of ice and refill my res. I’m looking more for automation. Setting an ice probe with a temp controller and a 24/7 recirc pump seems like it would be good enough, but will the ice probe just run 24/7 to attempt to cool that amount of water?
You can't expect an Ice probe to keep up with the heat an 24/7 submersible water pump will put out.. One adds heat,while the other try's to eliminate it.. Plus you have the heat added by every other thing in your room/tent.. If your going to depend on a ice probe, everything needs to be insulated and heat sources have to be removed.. It looks like your only other choice is a chiller.. . If you're going to use ice, everything still needs to be insulated.
Bite the bullet and get a chiller. A 1/10 hp will do for 10 gallons of liquid, but any more volume than that and it will be on most of the time.