I was just thinking to myself…which tends to be expensive and dangerous. lol…Instead of paying $600 for a hydro water chiller, what if one were to make one oneself? I was thinking first why are these so damn expensive when you can buy a small freezer or refrigerator for one fifth that? Anyway I got to thinking about using a fridge to chill some antifreeze water solution down to around 15 degrees or so in a small 2 cu ft. fridge with a freezer section, and then mount a pump to the door run some silicone through the door to a coil of aluminum tubing and hook that to a simple outlet with a temp probe and put another aluminum or copper coil into the hydro system reservoir bucket. You can get a pump for under $20 A fridge for $100 and some tubing for another $20. Anyone try anything similar to this? I was looking at a 1.7 cf fridge on Amazon yesterday for $99. Had a freezer section that went down to 0 degrees. Maybe also use a large reservoir of antifreeze and water to immerse the tubing into for a cold reservoir if you will. Wouldn’t take much of a pump very low gph. Anyway like I said i get to thinking too much lol. BTW those $600 chillers still require you to buy a pump on top of that, the only thing they have advantage wise is that they chill your nutrient water directly with out a heat exchange coil. Thoughts??
I’d like to see you do it but it’s not my dough lol
I’ve seen people use those little refrigerators run air lines through them to take the humidity out of the air lines for painting . Most know I’m not a hydro guy and I didn’t know those chiller were that expensive I like the idea 
Not only are they expensive they don’t handle much in the way of total volume in the hydro system either.
I’m not gonna do it now as this is my first hydro grow and I want to get a handle on it first before I commit any more dollars. So far I am not impressed with the health or the growth rate of my plants. One has been in the system for almost a week, it should be doing great by now but it isn’t. It looked the best the first day I put it in and has gotten kinda sickly looking since. The leaves are limp, and have a spiral twist to them. I definitely do NOT have this down yet lol.
Well wish you well in the hydro. @Hydro does pretty good with his and I thought I’d try one down the road maybe…Have you looked on YouTube for anything on making a chiller?
No I haven’t good suggestion ! I will go out hunting now lol…I did HVAC for a living up until I retired so should be able to build anything I need pretty easy.
Thanks!
I don’t need a chiller
Hvac man I could have used you when I installed my theee mini splits but I learned it and bought a ton of crap micron meter pumps,
Removal tools, brazing crap and B tank, nitrogen and other crap… 
Cause your cold blooded my brother 
Chiller is not needed .
I dont even check my temps. Hydro isn’t that hard
Sweet looking love the colors but looks like something grown in soil 
I know you keep saying that…meanwhile my poor babies are sickly looking lol. Are you still using AN or did you go to the Peters? I just did two things today, raised the water level and raised the lights up some, I have never used these lights for main growing lights, and last night I was thinking these are pretty strong 380watts each and are full spectrum LED’s. So I got to thinking maybe it is light/heat stress. I had the water maybe a 1/4 inch up into the basket, so maybe the roots weren’t getting enough water and air?
Anyway they look a little better than this morning. I’ll put a pic up on my grow journal Planet of the Grapes grow. Oh and also I found the same chillers that they are selling here from the hydro stores on AliExpress for half the price.
I have plants in both AN and Jack’s 321.
I keep my lights raised high as they go and just use my dimmer switch. I have hlg 260xl’s. If you have roots dropping below the net pots you water might be to high.
Problem is I have two plants just put in today that are two weeks behind the other two. biggest two have roots below the net pots, the other two don’t. I have TONS of air in the buckets so I don’t think that will be a problem leaving it higher for a few days to a week. Hope not anyway. The last tow buckets on the path are always a little lower than the first two, and they smallest are in the last two on the loop.
I have a couple smaller.
Mine kind of stairstep down in size.
It wont take them long to make roots
What do they look like
I put two pictures up on my Planet of the Grapes grow… .PS they are starting to stand up nicely! I think I had the light WAY too close, I had it at 12" to start…moved it to 18" and they perked up…moved it to 24" and they are really starting to look good. My nutes are a little low, (they are kinda pale) but it’s water change time on Tues, so gonna leave them alone till then. I will put up some more pictures tomorrow and again later this coming week on my Planet of the Grapes grow journal.
Those two 2’x4’ LED lights put out 700 watts. Just had them too close I guess, never used them for the main grow lights before, last grow I added them right before flower as a side light.
Awesome.
The ones in your journal look good.
I’m still learning my lights too.
Moving mine all the way up and using the dimmer is working good for me this time
Yep think I solved my own problem lights too close. The biggest is getting lack of nutes spots, but I’ll cure that, it could also be the light stress as well. Even the little one I put in today has doubled in size on the leaves. When I pulled the last one out today and put it in the bucket that Turbo Cloner water was probably 85 degrees i didn’t temp it I just could feel it was way hot, it was about to cook the little one lol.
And two of the jets were completely clogged up with what looked like brown sludge, had to take them out to get them unclogged. I am suspecting it was the AN VooDoo juice that did that.