Chiller Issue

[combsatl]

Guys -

I need some opinions. I recently bought a 'brand new' chiller from a guy - it was actually brand new but it had been sitting in the box for a few years. I set it up Sunday night and it ran flawlessly until Wednesday night. When I awoke on Thursday, AM, my tank was 82 degrees and the office where my aquarium was really hot (about 85 degrees). The compressor on the aquarium was red hot (not literally red, just very hot) which caused the heat issue.

The chiller was cycling on - the fan would kick on - run for a few seconds, then click and turn off. A few seconds later it would repeat the process. I shut it off and let it sit.

Here's my question - I opened the front panel and saw this:
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Notice the black 'stuff' coming out of the side.. doesn't look normal to me. I looked on my aquarium downstairs and the solenoid definitely does not have black stuff coming out the side.

The guy who sold it to me, a general contractor, came by and told me the issue was with power in my house. He said the chiller (a 1/4hp chiller) was pulling too much power and not kicking on - but that doesn't explain why it ran flawlessly during the first few days. I do agree that I'm pulling a lot from this 15amp circuit - i've got the aquarium lights (250w mh), pumps, a computer and a few other things.. but it DID run 3 days just fine, with no issues.

Then, he called the manufacturers support and the said it sounds like it's low on coolant - the compressor tries to click on but then shuts off. We tested it once more, with the compressor completely cold, and it tripped a breaker - so he says, "See, you're drawing too much power".. to which I responded, "Or there's something internally wrong with this chiller... like that black stuff coming out the side."

We left it as: he is going to have a refrigerator repair person come out to fill it up with coolant. At this point, to be perfectly honest, I don't even want that. I just want my money back.

What do you think? I'm looking for opinions...

Edit: Holy cow.. i really need to re-read things before I post.

"The compressor on the CHILLER was red hot"

"I looked on my CHILLER downstairs and the solenoid"

 

[lilrobb]

That "stuff" is molten insulation from the capacitor.
The capacitor buffers the power when the spike of the compressor pulls the most power.
With that thing blown - the compressor IS now pulling more juice than the circuit can handle...

 

[combsatl]

Thank you so much. That's exactly what I needed to send to this guy so i can get my freaking money back.

Thank you

 

[bruce 1]

This is odd. You bought a chiller from me that worked flawlessly also when it left here. It is a 1/3hp chiller. You have also requested the money back from me. And I told you I would but now 2 chillers have tore up. I am thinking what the contractor said might be right. I am going to talk to my electrician tomorrow for you as well.

 

[combsatl]

Bruce - different issues. Yours actually ran fine but just didn't cool anything. Highly doubt the issues are related in any way.

This one had been sitting in a box for five years. From what I'm seeing, capacitors don't go bad from not enough power - they go bad from being over powered, wired wrong or they're past their life and an internal issue causes it to blow.

 

[bruce 1]

Mine cooled great before it left my house. It had just came off a running tank about a month ago. And I tested it the day you got it. It just seems odd. Have you pulled the cover off the one you got from me to see what it looks like?

 

[schwaggs]

Very common for capacitors to go bad from old age.. Easy to replace as well. I wouldn't call 5 years very old, however...

 

[combsatl]

bruce 1;716391 wrote: Mine cooled great before it left my house. It had just came off a running tank about a month ago. And I tested it the day you got it. It just seems odd. Have you pulled the cover off the one you got from me to see what it looks like?

Ok - so I spent some time tonight messing with yours, Bruce. Aside from a bunch of rust I didn't see anything out of place - no bulging capacitors, nothing looks out of place at all. Being perfectly honest, here's what it seems: a leak in the coolant which isn't abnormal for units this old. I actually went to AdvanceAuto and bought some R134A refrigerant, which is what the chiller called for. I came home and tried to check the pressure but the valve was wrong so I had to go back and get an adapter. I did that, and it was very low - 5psi. I filled it up and turned it on - it chilled perfectly - it iced over within 30 seconds. I stuck it in a bucket of my salt water mix in the shop and turned it on. Within five minutes it was back to being water temperature and not cooling. I filled it back up and did the same - exact same results.

I'm not sure if you noticed this, but there's a hissing noise coming from the coil - I'm wondering if that's abnormal or if it's normal.

Edit:

Schwaggs;716392 wrote: Very common for capacitors to go bad from old age.. Easy to replace as well. I wouldn't call 5 years very old, however...

Yeah, I agree. Everyone I talk to is saying it sounds like a manufacturer defect - could be a bad resistor sending too much power to the cap or just a bad capacitor in general. It happens.

 

[grouper therapy]

More than likely you have leak in the system ,do not put any more refrigerant in it until you have someone check and/or fix the leak , the hissing is not normal. The capacitor is used to store electricity so that it can aid or help start the compressor. Your chiller was probably cycling on and off too much due to the low or no refrigerant thereby causing the capacitor to overheat and rupture.

 

[combsatl]

Different chillers.. i've had one hell of time with them :-/

 

[grouper therapy]

combsatl;716445 wrote: Different chillers.. i've had one hell of time with them :-/

gotcha I see, What is the temp of the tank without a chiller?

 

[combsatl]

I've lost so many fish over the past few years because of the temp changing too much in one day that I've gotten paranoid about running without a chiller.

I got my RKE set up today and got everything programmed and it stayed between 77 and 78.6 today. I have it set up so the heater kick son at 77.5 and a fan kicks on at 78.5. Let the MH bulbs run for 3 hours and it was all good. It helps that it's nice and chilly outside so I can leave the window cracked a bit.

Definitely going to have to run another circuit upstairs for the chiller and I'll probably run a spot chiller in the summer to keep the temp in the room lower. Could be interesting.

Edit: heater kicks on*

 

[cr500_af]

combsatl;716452 wrote: I've lost so many fish over the past few years because of the temp changing too much in one day that I've gotten paranoid about running without a chiller.

Really? How much swing are we talking? Fish can handle quite a bit of swing since it doesn't happen super quick. Corals, different story... but most fish we keep can deal with quite a lot of temperature variance. I have on two occasions had my tank swing more than ten degrees overnight due to central heat loss (and the heaters in the tank couldn't handle <60 degrees in the house). No issues with fish whatsoever.

 

[bruce 1]

If there is a hissing noise something is not right. Sounds like a leak of some sort.?.? But anyway like I told you get it back to me I have your money waiting.

 

[combsatl]

cr500_af;716489 wrote: Really? How much swing are we talking? Fish can handle quite a bit of swing since it doesn't happen super quick. Corals, different story... but most fish we keep can deal with quite a lot of temperature variance. I have on two occasions had my tank swing more than ten degrees overnight due to central heat loss (and the heaters in the tank couldn't handle <60 degrees in the house). No issues with fish whatsoever.

This has been happening to me for a few years. I'm finally at a point that the tank isn't killing things... It was mainly during the summer months - the tank would get to like 83 during the day and then drop to 77 over night.. so I guess that's six degrees... Funny thing, my corals always did great - I never had a single issue with them at all. This was all in my biocube so I only had softies.. but yeah. Every time it happened the fish would get stressed and get ich. Before I had time to put them in a QT they died - clowns, small tangs, a mandarin, royal gamma, different angels (flame, coral beauty), blenny, various other fish - and the BC was every established and the parameters were perfect. This has happened in a 26g bow front, a 45g standard and my 29g biocube - all with the exact same problem.

Every time it would happen I felt terrible. I'd talk to my LFS and he would tell me to wait a month or so, do water changes as per norm and try again. Time after time the same thing would happen. The only things I ever had luck keeping were Clowns and as soon as I'd add something else (tiny yellow tang... tiny kole tang... etc) within a week they'd have the white spots I know all too well and everything would die.

This last time, around August, I had clowns in there for about 6 weeks before adding another fish - a small yellow tang. Within 2 weeks they all had ich. I bought a cleaner shrimp and dosed the tank with some ich medicine. The clowns didn't make it and the tang was on his death bed.. fins all tattered, wasn't eating. Then I bought a chiller on eBay which arrived in absolutely no time at all - luckily. I upgraded the return pump on the BC and ran it through the chiller. I continued the treatments (I'd been doing it for a few weeks already) and as soon as I had that temp stabilized the tang started doing better and better. He's been happy every since... not a problem at all. His fins regrew, the spots all went away - he's fantastic. I went out and got some onyx clowns from JJ Ocean and they're doing great. I also added a few more - a tail spotted blenny, Melanaurus wrasse and a fire goby - they're all 100% perfect.

So.. that's my story of why I feel it's necessary to have a chiller, lol. Maybe my house is built on an old Indian fish store burial ground or something but it's just very strange.

Edit:

bruce 1;716504 wrote: If there is a hissing noise something is not right. Sounds like a leak of some sort.?.? But anyway like I told you get it back to me I have your money waiting.

Yeah - I have no idea. I was extremely careful when installing it, too - I didn't kink the hose or anything and made sure to follow the instructions exactly. The R134A I had had 'leak prevention additives' but they didn't seem to work. I hope they didn't affect my tank at all.. but my fish and corals seem to be doing just fine.

I do appreciate it, sir, thank you.

 

[grouper therapy]

So you are suggesting that the temp swing caused stress on the fish and the Ich just showed up?

 

[combsatl]

Yep, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. From the research I did online and speaking with various LFS, ich is in every tank but fish have the ability to fight it off when their immune system is operating normally. The temp swing caused them to get stressed which depleted their slime coats and caused them to be less effective at fighting it off. Once ich finds a host it multiplies and gets worse and worse - then other fish which may have not been as stressed become more so because the ich attacks their gills, fins, etc.

From what I saw, once I got the temp stabilized to within a few degrees (the absolute most the tank swings now is 3-4 degrees) the fish was able to recover from it.

Is this not your experience? Or have you had the good fortune to not deal with Ich?

 

[reeferman]

my tanks temp swings 4-5 and sometimes 6 degrees EVERYDAY and ive never had an ich outbreak.

 

[grouper therapy]

combsatl;716516 wrote: Yep, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. From the research I did online and speaking with various LFS, ich is in every tank but fish have the ability to fight it off when their immune system is operating normally. The temp swing caused them to get stressed which depleted their slime coats and caused them to be less effective at fighting it off. Once ich finds a host it multiplies and gets worse and worse - then other fish which may have not been as stressed become more so because the ich attacks their gills, fins, etc.

From what I saw, once I got the temp stabilized to within a few degrees (the absolute most the tank swings now is 3-4 degrees) the fish was able to recover from it.

Is this not your experience? Or have you had the good fortune to not deal with Ich?

Actually that hasn't been my experience but my evidence is just like yours , anecdotal ,just in the opposite direction. I ran my big tank at 83 degrees for years without any issue. I kept 10 tangs and 16 other fish and did not have to battle ich in the display tank. I quarantined before introduction into the display. I will say that I did not let my tank swing more than 4 degrees. In your scenario if 83 degrees is the max why not set the heater to 81 or so and forgo the chiller.

 

[combsatl]

Isn't that on the very edge of the top end of what an aquarium temp should be? I thought I run the risk of stressing the fish out, yet again, if I go up much higher.. or risk hurting the coral.

I'm not sure.. I just bought a chiller and now the tank is happy - that's on my biocube down on the main floor. I've got my new 72g in my office which is upstairs. It gets a little warmer up here.

Edit:

reeferman;716520 wrote: my tanks temp swings 4-5 and sometimes 6 degrees EVERYDAY and ive never had an ich outbreak.

I must have bad luck then. Maybe I never let the tank sit long enough after an outbreak (I did let it sit three months at one point after an outbreak) or maybe it was swinging more than 6 degrees - I'm not sure.