Help with chiller and ocntroller

[Ben1]

Who to trust lol, a few of my SPS have some very very slow tissue necrosis at the base. I cant figure out the cause but noticed my pump on my chiller was cavatating today to I fixed it and it went on to tell me my tank was 81. It s Pacific Coast with a built in controller. So I figured let me check that against my old medusa controller. The medusa has been used for a few years and then stored in the closet for a another year.

The chiller is telling me 81.

The medusa is telling me 85.

How do you all plumb your chillers?

Mine is a small one 1/10 hp and I had it running where the pump would pull from the sump and the return would feed into my overflow at the top of the tank. I pulled it out and now have it feeding back to the sump but not sure what the best way to plumb this thing would be.

 

[Ben1]

I ran to my LFS and bought a Marina AquaMinder with digital thermometer and popped it in, it is also reading 85 so I guess I got my answer. I lowered the set temp on the chiller to 77 to compensate.

 

[Anonymous]

I'd say get a thermometer with 1° resolution and see which one is lying!

 

[camaroracer214]

i don't trust thermometers. i have several all over that read a wide variety of temps. i even had one that read 120+ degrees, granted it was a cheap coralife digital thermometer.

 

[Anonymous]

I'd say get a thermometer with 1° resolution and see which one is lying!

In the lab, we used calibrated thermo, and they are like 10X more expensive than one of identical construction.

Digital thermos are real jokes.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah when I talk thermometer I mean ones that are glass filled mercury or alcohol tubes. I would say get a scientific grade one with 0.1°F resolution, but those can go be expensive, but you might find a decent one on ebay or something, probably celcius scale though.

 

[Ben1]

Any one got a link to where I can get one of these super accurate thermometers.

I think I believe the old Medusa though since the new digital one I bought matched it. While niether one matched the chillers read out.

 

[Anonymous]

The fever thermometer actually is pretty accurate. Get some warm water, and put the fever thermo in, and check it against your digital one, and see if the number matches. Too bad our reef don't run at human body temperature, otherwise we don't need to hassle with this.

For good digital thermometer, you just need to get one with specific precision and accuracy specification. If the $20 digital thermometer does not have the specification, it is probably only good for checking the weather.