What about an aquarium?

D

Daravon

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 14, 2005
Messages
82
Has anyone ever actully used one? I have a 55gallon one across the room. I could use a submersible pump, and have probably truly room temperature water, better than a rad setup even. I would have to run tubing across the room, but I grow closer to Lain every day anyway.
 
what's lain?

also there's no need to use a sub pump if yoiu don't want to

and yes it's been done many times - with swimming pools even
 
oh and the best thing about that is you can grab a bag of ice anytime you want and have sub ambient temps for benching or whatever
 
Lain of Serial experiments Lain, a 13 episode anime show. Every OCer should watch it, you'll find out what I mean. Lain's 'spiritual journey' is quite amusing.

What kind of pump would I be looking for? It would have to be quiet, 120v probably, cause it's getting plugged into the wall, though I suppose I could use a little wall wart power supply. Probably submersible sounds best, for quietness, and cheap. Plus at would have to pump about 40 feet between my computer and aquarium.
 
I sure hope it wont be an aquarium full of fishies. Also you will likely have problems with particulates gunking up your waterblocks. I would not do this with any block that utilizes impingement (ala Storm).

For the pump, Eheim, hands down the best quiet aquarium pumps.
 
I'm sure it's been done before. Initial temps, when you first turn your rig on, with that much water, will be nice but will eventually heat up. It'll just take a lot longer.

It might be fun to play with something like this but doubt you'd see any temp/performance benifit.
 
I sure hope it wont be an aquarium full of fishies. Also you will likely have problems with particulates gunking up your waterblocks.
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Well I DO have a 10 inch shovelhead catfish fish in it. The water stays pretty clear.

Initial temps, when you first turn your rig on, with that much water, will be nice but will eventually heat up. It'll just take a lot longer.
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I'm not sure it will heat up. Consider there's a lot of surface area over the whole aquarium. Plus, there's gonna be a lot of hose running between, too.
 
The water in the aquarium will be evaporating, keeping temps low.
 
Daravon said:
'm not sure it will heat up. Consider there's a lot of surface area over the whole aquarium. Plus, there's gonna be a lot of hose running between, too.
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Well then do it. I'm just giving you my thoughts.

Just keep in mind that if it was such a great idea that we'd all have big ol' aquariums sitting next to our comps.
 
as long as you don't have any aluminum or otherwise far on the galvanic scale, you shouldn't do any "damage".

probably what would happen after running it for a while is that you'll start to see degradation in performance. so you'll pull everything apart and find algae or something else in the blocks. clean them out and you're good again. just a question of how serious it'll get, how many times you'll have to clean everything each year, and if it'll be too much of a pain for you.
 
Lol @ the Lain comment. I'm currently sleeping beside... a front bezel, about 30m of 18g wire, 2 ethernet cables, a laptop, my phone, 2 radiators, some sound proofing material, 10ft of masterkleer tubing, like 4 cathodes... my RAM.

They're all in the bed next to me. When time comes for bed, I shove it all over, and literally sleep in a pile of cables.

Now all I need is a noisy power transformer (or some other source of 60hz blacknoise) and I'll be re-creating the anime.
 
Daravon said:
I'm not sure it will heat up. Consider there's a lot of surface area over the whole aquarium. Plus, there's gonna be a lot of hose running between, too.
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You're going to dump heat in faster than it can be passively removed, which means unless you add an active cooling solution (a.k.a. dumping in ice), it will eventually equalize like Sideroxylon said. Over the long run, unless you take your fish out, put a screen filter over the top of your aquarium, and use distilled water, you'll probably spend more time cleaning crap out of your system instead of seeing significant benefits.
 
As the temperature of the water increases in the aquarium, its rate of evaporation will also increase. Evaporation removes heat from the liquid. An acquarium isn't sealed up, like a bay res or something. So it wouldn't just keep on heating up and heating up.
 
I would not do this with fish in the aquarium. Even if the water *looks* clean, it isn't. Also you will be heating up the water, how much I don't know, which might not be the best for some fish.
 
Daravon said:
Well I DO have a 10 inch shovelhead catfish fish in it. The water stays pretty clear.



I'm not sure it will heat up. Consider there's a lot of surface area over the whole aquarium. Plus, there's gonna be a lot of hose running between, too.
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oh snap never mind there is a fish in there

ok this now qaulifies as the dumbest question i've ever read on this or any other forum

of coarse you shouldn't use a tank WITH A FREAKING FISH IN IT for any type of pc watercooling :rolleyes:
 
The rate at which evaporation would be removing heat is not high enough to counteract the amount of heat you are putting into the tank. Looking at a smaller aquarium a heater is used to increase the temp in the tank to a few degrees above ambient. For example, a 50W heater for 10 minutes every hour. Now how much heat is in your computer? Some processors can generate 180W every second, this is alot more heat than can be disipated into the air continuously through evaporation and conduction-convection through the glass. Now if you increase surface area the amount of heat able to be disipated via evaporation grows quite dramaticaly which is why bong coolers can often achive sub-ambient in low humidity enviroments with suplemental airflow.

- Gyr
 
a larger body of water will only give you more time before that water reaches its maximum operating temperature. granted if you use a swimming pool sized resevior the sheer amount of water coupled with outdoor temperatures and the evaporation of several hundred square feet of surface area of water will stay much much cooler. but when you compare a normal one gallon resevoir to a 55 gallon resevoir [fish tank], the 5 square feet of surface area isnt going to be enough to keep it passively cooled. let alone your going to boil your fishes by dumping several hundred watts of heat into his house for as long as your computers on. and there hasnt been a single fish tank ive seen that i would drink out of, and i wouldnt put any water in my computer that i wouldnt drink myself :p (before putting it in, not after its been in there a few months)

if the tank was empty and you had a ~35 micron or less, low restriction filter on the intake, and you could dump a bag of ice in there once a day or so, or had some other way of cooling it, then i say go for it. and yea an eheim pump is what you want
 
YOU GUYS ARE ALL LIKE - PHYSICS THIS AND PHYSICS THAT - WHAT ABOUT THE FREAKING CATFISH IN THE TANK!!!!!! - LOL :D :cool: :rolleyes: ;) ;) :( :) :mad: :eek: ​
 
lol i said dumping large amounts of heat into his house is not a nice thing to do. how would you like it if some guy came up and piped a 10k BTU furnace into your bedroom window? and its not physics its thermo dynamics :p
 
I can see the OP waking up one morning, with his PC suspiciously shut off...

Tracing back to the aquarium, there's no fish!

Instead, it's LOGED inside one of the tubes ;)
 
ive smelled some horrible things from burning components... catfish frying in a waterblock is something i dont want to smell
 
malicious said:
YOU GUYS ARE ALL LIKE - PHYSICS THIS AND PHYSICS THAT - WHAT ABOUT THE FREAKING CATFISH IN THE TANK!!!!!! - LOL :D :cool: :rolleyes: ;) ;) :( :) :mad: :eek: ​
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QFT wow. You guys are all like "well the water will heat up eventually, and it might not be good, but water is evaporating, and this and that and this and that akshfpaskjf"

THERES A FISH IN THE TANK! Yeah, not a good idea.
 
Shlomo said:
QFT wow. You guys are all like "well the water will heat up eventually, and it might not be good, but water is evaporating, and this and that and this and that akshfpaskjf"

THERES A FISH IN THE TANK! Yeah, not a good idea.
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LOL. As i was reading this thread and after he said theres a fish in the tank, it took about 8 posts for someone to mention it... so i thought it was a joke... lol. I say do it, but get smaller fish... The tubing will be like a water slide for them when they are bored. :D
 
DJS2 said:
lol. I say do it, but get smaller fish... The tubing will be like a water slide for them when they are bored. :D
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And what would the waterblocks be? Evil traps where they get impaled on hundreds of tiny pins?
 
I'm sure you're just waiting for the real answer to your problem.

Yes an aquarium full of fish is ideal. Truthfully, catfish are one of the best tools any overclocker can have as they substantially lower the temp of any body of water they reside. They're just that cool.
 
To the OP :

If you want to use the aquarium because you think it would look cool you have another option.Get some clear plexi and create a false wall to partition the side with the fish from the side with the watercooling. Make sure no water overflows on the top. This way you get the illusion that the watercooling is going into the fish tank...when it really isn't.
 
Gyrfalcon said:
The rate at which evaporation would be removing heat is not high enough to counteract the amount of heat you are putting into the tank. Looking at a smaller aquarium a heater is used to increase the temp in the tank to a few degrees above ambient. For example, a 50W heater for 10 minutes every hour. Now how much heat is in your computer? Some processors can generate 180W every second, this is alot more heat than can be disipated into the air continuously through evaporation and conduction-convection through the glass. Now if you increase surface area the amount of heat able to be disipated via evaporation grows quite dramaticaly which is why bong coolers can often achive sub-ambient in low humidity enviroments with suplemental airflow.

- Gyr
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Listen to this guy and check this link out:
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/tipsandtables/l/blheatersize.htm

For a 25 gallon tank and 200W of heat dump, you're looking at water temperatures that are 15 degrees above ambient. Roughly speaking, that puts your core temp ~20 degrees above ambient at best.

Your catfish might not appreciate that :)
 
Erasmus354 said:
To the OP :

If you want to use the aquarium because you think it would look cool you have another option.Get some clear plexi and create a false wall to partition the side with the fish from the side with the watercooling. Make sure no water overflows on the top. This way you get the illusion that the watercooling is going into the fish tank...when it really isn't.
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now that is a nice idea
 
shadowfax said:
what's the thermal transfer of the plexiglass going to be though? The fish still won't like it if his water heats up.
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Not to mention the fact that you just turned his tank into a duplex. I'd be a little pissed if my house was cut in half. If you do that, beware of Catfish's Revenge - I've never experienced it but I hear it can be pretty brutal.
 
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