Pro vs. Con - Pacific Coast Imports CHILLER

[EBOLII]

Product - Pacific Coast Imports CW-0500 1/2 HP combination chiller + heater

Looking for the pro's and con's of this chiller for a total 700-800g system

240g + 2 112g displays the rest are sump/ref/filter etc

What do you think? Are there different suggestions?
is 1/2HP enough? I live in SC.

or

Product - Pacific Coast Imports CW-1000 1 HP combination chiller + heater

[Noobie99]

Isn't the 1/2 HP rated for 450 gallons? I've been looking into their chillers and their specs are a little odd or I'm a little odd in looking at this but this is what I found.

Pacific Coast- BTU6000
10 degree chill- 450 gallons
30 degree chill- 340 gallons

Aqua Logic- BTU6000
10 degree chill- 350 gallons
30 degree chill- 135 gallons

Aqua Euro- BTU6000
10 degree chill- 350 gallons
30 degree chill- 135 gallons

the aqua logic and the aqua euro I know for sure that those are the correct ratings and some of the other 1/2HP run pretty close to those figures, so I'm a little sketchy on whether PCI over rates the chillers or not.

[DarG]

PCI is overstating. Nothing wrong with the chillers, apparently alot of people use them. But they are not better than Aqua Logic. They dont have some magical cooling innovations that gives their 6000 BTU's some type of major advantage over Aqualogic 6000 BTU's.

You just have to use common sense and do research with chillers before purchase, just like any other major investment in the tank. There is one company that has a 2600 BTU rating and calls the chiller a 1/3 HP. Most any other companies 1/3 has a 4000 BTU rating give or take a couple of 100 BTU. 2600 BTU is like a 1/4 or 1/5.

Just gotta be careful.

As far as 700 - 800 gallons, I would think that 1 HP would be more approriate than 1/2 HP. The heat load is so high on my 90 gallon (probably 90 gallons total system volume) that I could probably run a 1/2 and not run too short of an on-off cycle to beat the crap out of it. The 1/3 on mine runs quite a bit and definitely is not oversized.

It depends on the system. Alot of factors are involved in proper sizing.

[Jasonincuritiba]

Yeah at LFS I worked at we had a 1 HP JBJ Arctica Commercial chiller for our 600 gallon show tank. I wouldn't go smaller than a 1 HP chiller with your needs or you just end up wasting money on a chiller that is always on but cannot fully cool your tanks.

[EBOLII]

I am intending to run a 240g and two 112g into one main system. I plan on converting a 125g into the main sump with LR with an additional 55g refugium and perhaps another 30-40g frag prop tank so give or take the whole system will be 700-800g