[Lightsluvr]

Has any reefer ever thought of this idea?

Suppose you only need a chiller when your MH are running, and only need to lower water temp about one or two degrees to maintain target temps between 78-80 degrees F.

What would happen if you made RO/DI ice cubes (in a plastic container) and dropped a few in your sump (in lieu of top-off requirements) during the "hot" period...

I sure don't want to try this, but it seemed like such a silly, simple solution...

Any thoughts?

LL

[glampka]

That probably won't work since you'll need a lot of ice to bring down the temp of 90 plus gallons. 1 or 2 degrees aren't going to make or break you. You could go as high as 85 without much trouble depending on the load.
You could put some water in an empty milk jug, freeze that & put the jug in the sump. That would give you enough ice to cool the water down.

[Jeremy0322]

The jug is a really good idea actually. Make sure you leave room for the expansion process though when its freezing. The other things that i have also read on here are 2 liter bottles and alot of computer cooling fan aims right under the lights to take some of the heat away from the water.

[Cern]

I read of a guy using chemical ice packs in a portion of his sump. You know the kind that you put in a cooler when you goto the beach. I'd want to put them in a plastic bag or two just in case they sprung a leak. But I've had two for like 10 years that never broke...