Slashdot Mirror
Water Cooling and Fishtanks?
mikeb55121 asks: "Today I
was refilling my fish tank and was thinking about water cooling for
my computer. As I spilled the water on the ground I realized that
I was pouring cold water in to my fish tank and that I had tropical
fish and right then it struck me! If I could just hook up my fish
tank and computer together so that it would use watercooling by using
the water out of the fish tank to cool the processor and then go back
in to the tank and keep them warm. In my head it works out just fine
however I don't know if it would be practical in reality.
If such is possible, it would be pretty tight since it would keep my
processor, fish and me happy, all at one time! If any one actually is
going to try this, please email me, as I would like to hear about your
results and to know if an idea of mine actually works for once!" An
interesting thought! If any of you have pulled something like this off,
please share. (And post pictures if you've got 'em!)
1 word, fish stew.
Seriously, i was thinking of this myself a while ago, but I only have a 10 gallon tank. I'm pretty sure that using it as a heat sink for anyhing much above a 486 would heat it to the point where it kills the fish. For a larger tank, or a small pond(I have a lager turtle pond in the living room. Large for a pond in the living room, at least.) it might work. I would try it on an empty tank first, to see how the temperature balances. However, i have thought of combining the waterpump with a waterfall effect for the pond. The only problem is if anything goes wrong with the pump(happens a lot), fried chip. But I would love to see if anyoe ocmes up with a working concept behind this.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Most freshwater aquaria actually require water coolers to keep the temperature down to what the fish can stand. IIRC, the correct temperature for a freshwater tank is approximately 68F. Marine (saltwater) aquaria are somewhat more temperature tolerant, having a recommended temperature of 78F. However, the water movement requirement of a marine aquarium demands so much pump capacity (again, IIRC, I had something like 1350 liters/minute of total pump capacity in my 55 gallon marine tank) that the 10 degree "flex" in temperature ranges was insignificant.
If you allow for the heat generated by the 80+ watts of recommended fluorescent lighting needed for a moderate-sized tank (say 50-75 gallons), the problem that arises is one of keeping the temperature DOWN to the recommended range. Last time I looked at the price for water coolers for a decent-sized aquarium, it exceeded the cost of a mid-range PC (D00d, you're getting a Dell!).
Not wanting to throw (figuratively speaking) cold water on a promising research project, I SERIOUSLY think you are going in the wrong direction by planning to hook up another heat source to your tank.
utter rubbish
First off, Ignore all the people saying it would cook the fish. Obviously, you'd include the same sort of radiator setup you would in a PC watercooling situation, otherwise the water would continue to heat up until it was as hot as the CPU and you wouldn't have any cooling anymore. You could use temperature controlled fans on the radiator to control the tank temperature.
Secondly, and more importantly, how would you keep crap from growing in your hoses and radiator? Your radiator would be clogged with green hairy crap in no time. Then you'd get horrible flow and inefficient cooling. There is no need for such a large resivoir for your PC water cooling unless you want few fans. You definatly want some horibly toxic life killing chemicals in your coolant though.
you could just tape some tubing onto the glass fish tank and then run it inside your computer and SAY its water cooled, then you'd be really cool and wouldn't have to do anything
all you need now is a webcam and a cheese website dedicated to tropical fish
These will get you started. The first and second links look very handy to your situation. They deal with water cooling and using a fishtank pump to pump the water over the CPU core using a home-made heat sink.
t ml
http://www.agaweb.com/coolcpu/build.htm
http://www.overclockers.com.au/techstuff/wc1/
http://www.gibtek.co.uk/hardware/watercooling.h
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
I agree with the people who said that the CPU heat won't be enough to cook the fish, nor will it be enough to sustain the heat alone.
You will need a filter between the tank and your cooling line. Otherwise you'll get fish material (extrement, food, plant matter, etc.) clogging up your CPU cooling system, reducing the efficiency or possibly blocking it altogether. Which will fry your CPU.
I've never tried doing this with a CPU, and am not sure what your fish can tolerate. Find out what the ideal temp for the fish is, then stick them in a smaller tank and run your CPU on full tilt (think SETI@home or the Bovine project) for 24 hours. Watch the temp of the CPU and the tank. Your CPU should have some setup to bring itself down if the temp gets too high, and this fish tank really won't matter too much because you won't have the fish in it - right?
It should be fine, even with a smaller tank. A 55 gallon tank ought be near nothing. For tank lighting (if you do that), get some lights that don't generate heat. You should also have a tank heater if your fish needed it before. You CPU running at it's max constantly should still not come within more than one degree of what the fish is willing to tolerate.
SIG: HUP
One common technique is to have a closed primary loop containing distilled water. This is connected through a heat exchanger to an open secondary loop that contains ordinary water from a river, lake, etc. I've seen this used to cool high-power radio transmitters.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
My brother bought a 80 gallon (approx.) fish tank. Because he got bored of it after a while, I ended up taking care of it. From my exerience, I've always kept the tank heater at the lowest setting, and the tank's temperature is usually right in the middle of where it should be. Unfortunately, I can't remember what that number is, because I busted the thermometer so long ago.
Anyways, it all depends on how hot your room and computer is.
As for keeping the hoses clean, use an under-gravel filter combined with a power head, and some tubes. I would recommend exposing the water to some air before it goes back into the tank. This will oxygenate it and help to stablize the temperature.
Algae is a bit of a problem, but it all depends on the type of algae you have local to your area. It should be easy to take care of if you have a pipe cleaner.
The biggest problem I see with it, is that you shouldn't be using metal tubes and devices to pass the water through. The metals might leave deposits and/or trace amounts. It still might be useful however, to put a coil of rubber tube in the computer to let it absorb heat from the air inside the computer. I doubt that it is what you're looking for, but I'm sure that it would make a difference.
I'd be interested in hearing how you make out.
Sincerely, and with thanks,
Eugene T.S. Wong
testing out my trending skills
As has probably been stated (but I shall restate) corrosion is the enemy of watercooling setups far more than most people give credit for. If you don't put some sort of anti-corrosion additive into your water, you're going to have black or greenish water (depends on waterblock material, copper or aluminum) in about four days. Forget algae growth and all that which might take weeks, corrosion will destroy your system in no time.
Think I'm wrong? Go to www.overclock-watercool.com and look at the links on water additives like Redline's Water Wetter. Without it, the system had black water and a fouled pump in a couple of days. Of course, Water Wetter will swiftly kill your fish, too, so that's not such a "hot" idea.
If you really want to do this you'll have to build a water-to-water heat exchanger. This is going to be a lot of trouble but if you really want to this would be kinda neat (in a geeky way). If you're unfamiliar with heat exchangers, look up info on nuclear reactors, who have two coolant loops. One is "hot" (radioactive) that cools the nuclear core itself (analagous to your processor), the second is the "outside" loop that never mixes with the "hot" loop but picks up heat from it via a heat exchange ("outside" analogous to your fishtank).
Oh, by the way, you should check out the thermal dissapation figures of the processor you're talking about. My Athlon 1800+ dual setup (watercooled, by Koolance.com) puts out about 80W of heat per processor. I have five of these (I do 3D graphics) and they warm the room in the winter without any heat. Unless you have a truly massive fishtank (large thermal sink) you're going to overheat your fish. They won't boil, but it would definitely kill them.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Dude, calm down. You can download that screensaver off the internet at Fishtank screen saver. If your not careful, you'll get yourself into a recursive loop.