Water cooling = heater?

[SirTeeCup]

I recently came across a few videos from a YouTube channel by the name of Tech Ingredients and there were three that caught my attention. The three were videos where about DIY fridges, freezers and aquarium lights. Though in all three videos one thing caught my attention, the use of liquid cooling to divert heat from the appliances to warm another location, and in the case of the aquarium light video, heating the aquarium itself. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with similar attempts at heating your aquariums to cut the costs of heaters and issues with heater failure, or even the possibility of using said liquid heaters to somewhat heat outdoor mini ponds.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I’ve seen people use heat mats under their aquariums, commonly used in reptile setups. With the type of heating you’re talking about it feels like a lot of variables that could go wrong, break, and then your livestock are in jeopardy. Using room heaters or central air is better than in tank heaters but can be cost prohibitive in certain settings. Some people will have all their tanks on a central sump and heat the sump. 

[Biotope Biologist]

So interestingly enough due to the laws of thermodynamics energy (in this case heat) cannot be removed from a system it can only be moved from one system to another. Another way of saying this is the sum of energy in two interacting systems never decreases.

 

So for example, when you look at your freezer it is actively changing the temperature of your appliance to 32 degrees when the other system it is interacting with, your home, is 70 degrees. For this to happen the refrigerator must move this heat to the other system, your home. So if you were to pull your refrigerator out and feel it's heat exchange unit, it would be extremely hot, because it had to move this heat out of the system. 

 

These laws get a bit more complicated with insulation, thermal loss, and with complex working mechanisms. In an ideal world we could harness all of our heat loss through equipment and apply it elsewhere. Indeed, that's what many household physicists struggle with when creating a "smart home." Harnessing the losses you experience in one part of the home to use in another would greatly save on our energy bills and is why insulation and double paned windows are so important in places that experience heat extremes. I digress, liquid cooling and heating is definitely the easiest way to transfer heat as water has incredibly high thermal conduction capabilities. People with large amounts of water in their house still use in-line heaters as, without getting into too many gory details ceramic electric heaters remain the most efficient ways of generating heat for your water to carry.

 

Also Welcome aboard! I hope that the scientific jargon didn't scare you away from the forums 😋

Edited November 23, 2021 by Biotope Biologist

[SirTeeCup]

On 11/23/2021 at 10:23 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

I’ve seen people use heat mats under their aquariums, commonly used in reptile setups. With the type of heating you’re talking about it feels like a lot of variables that could go wrong, break, and then your livestock are in jeopardy. Using room heaters or central air is better than in tank heaters but can be cost prohibitive in certain settings. Some people will have all their tanks on a central sump and heat the sump. 

From what was mentioned, the cooling system for the light is using the aquarium water so there wont be too many issues with chemicals going into the water if something breaks, the only issue would be occasionally going in and cleaning the tubes of any buildup to prevent clogging. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@SirTeeCupok that makes sense. My background is human anatomy and physiology. Although the basic principles of thermodynamics apply universally in practice that’s a whole other ball of wax. I’m excited to see what you come up with!