The Ice Box how to

So sine I mentioned that I set up my new Ice Box I have had a lot of questions about it and setting it up. First off it works really well. I use it to cool my 1000w. The only complaint I have about it is that the chiller they recommend using with it is crazy expensive. And if you let your res water get warmer than 65F its not going to do its job. I made my own chiller out of 20 of copper tubing, a 5 gallon bucket and a mini fridge. Cost me 50 bucks works great. I’ve also heard of using a swimming pool as your res. If you wanna save money you have to get creative. I have included some scans of diagrams of different setups you can do that came with my Ice Box. Again with this I’m sure you can get creative with how you set it up as long as you understand how it works. I hope this helps. If anyone has any more questions feel free to ask me, I will do my best to have answer.

All of your pics are hard to read because everything is upside down

Well if he dosent fix it,
click on the pic to open viewer, click on the pic again to open IE, Click on pic a third time to make it full size. Then right click and save to desktop. Open with your viewer and rotate it.

D^rail said:

So sine I mentioned that I set up my new Ice Box I have had a lot of questions about it and setting it up. First off it works really well. I use it to cool my 1000w. The only complaint I have about it is that the chiller they recommend using with it is crazy expensive. And if you let your res water get warmer than 65F its not going to do its job. I made my own chiller out of 20 of copper tubing, a 5 gallon bucket and a mini fridge. Cost me 50 bucks works great. I’ve also heard of using a swimming pool as your res. If you wanna save money you have to get creative. I have included some scans of diagrams of different setups you can do that came with my Ice Box. Again with this I’m sure you can get creative with how you set it up as long as you understand how it works. I hope this helps. If anyone has any more questions feel free to ask me, I will do my best to have answer.

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thanks for posting those diagrams d rail. i wonder how effective using 2 iceboxes would be.

do you use a closed system with your icebox or do you dump your light cooling air out of the room? thanks

I currently use two iceboxes for 2 1000W lights. They seem to work fine in keeping temperatures in check, but don't let that resevoir heat up because then they become far less useful. I have mine hooked up and am using a Light Rail 5 to move both light/icebox/fans. Running the feed hoses was the biggest bitch of all, but once you've got it figured out, they are superb. I'm not sure how much money I'm saving, if any having to use a chiller all night to keep the resevoir temp down, and running two can fan RS6's, but not having to plumb air ducting was the biggest benefit IMO. I still wonder if I should've just got an air conditioner and been done with it but oh well. Once summer is over is when I'll be reaping more of the benefits from what I've already got.

Mcgician said:

I currently use two iceboxes for 2 1000W lights. They seem to work fine in keeping temperatures in check, but don't let that resevoir heat up because then they become far less useful. I have mine hooked up and am using a Light Rail 5 to move both light/icebox/fans. Running the feed hoses was the biggest bitch of all, but once you've got it figured out, they are superb. I'm not sure how much money I'm saving, if any having to use a chiller all night to keep the resevoir temp down, and running two can fan RS6's, but not having to plumb air ducting was the biggest benefit IMO. I still wonder if I should've just got an air conditioner and been done with it but oh well. Once summer is over is when I'll be reaping more of the benefits from what I've already got.

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hey man, what size chiller/res do you use? i have 2 1000w lights also and have been considering the iceboxes

somebody041 said:

hey man, what size chiller/res do you use? i have 2 1000w lights also and have been considering the iceboxes

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I use a 1/4hp Active Aqua chiller from Hydrofarm. Works very well, but would work a lot better if the room it sits in (bathroom) had a more powerful fan to get rid of the heat it puts off. At some point, with all the additional power in fans you pretty much just break even powerwise in just getting an AC. My only thing was that AC units cannot be counted on to keep the odors in the room contained. If odor isn't a concern, I'd have gotten an AC unit right from the start. Sure would've been a lot easier. Still a little nervous about posting pics.

hey thanks cruzer i didnt even realize they where upside down.

I would definitely NOT recommend diagram 4 as a setup choice. The amount of cfm loss would be too much to gain any significant amount of heat dissapation.

i am still a little bit confused on how the icebox works. does it only work in sealed rooms? how do you suppy co2 to the room if not?

You pump cold water into the radiator (icebox) and blow the hot exhaust air from your light on it with an attached circular fan. The air that comes out is colder than what would normally be, and you don't have to run air ducting somewhere/somehow out of the room. The catch, is that you need a separate resevoir and a separate place to put the chiller because of the heat it produces.

Mcgician said:

You pump cold water into the radiator (icebox) and blow the hot exhaust air from your light on it with an attached circular fan. The air that comes out is colder than what would normally be, and you don't have to run air ducting somewhere/somehow out of the room. The catch, is that you need a separate resevoir and a separate place to put the chiller because of the heat it produces.

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thanks, but that wasn't really what i was confused about. my issue has to do with providing fresh air or co2 to the plants.

do you use an intake/exhaust in conjunction with the icebox? if you do not, then how to you provide your plants with co2? i would love to incorporate an icebox into my grow, but i don't have a complete co2 system and cant afford one right now. if you use an intake/exhaust then do you have it on a timer so you can take advantage of the cooler air coming out of the icebox? thanks for the clarification. i ask all these questions about co2/fresh air because i have seen the detrimental effects of lack of fresh co2.


also, mcgician, would you mind telling me what your ambient temps, res temp, and room temps are? i ask because i would be using the system to cool the same amount of lights as you. thanks man!

somebody041 said:

thanks, but that wasn't really what i was confused about. my issue has to do with providing fresh air or co2 to the plants.

do you use an intake/exhaust in conjunction with the icebox? if you do not, then how to you provide your plants with co2? i would love to incorporate an icebox into my grow, but i don't have a complete co2 system and cant afford one right now. if you use an intake/exhaust then do you have it on a timer so you can take advantage of the cooler air coming out of the icebox? thanks for the clarification. i ask all these questions about co2/fresh air because i have seen the detrimental effects of lack of fresh co2.


also, mcgician, would you mind telling me what your ambient temps, res temp, and room temps are? i ask because i would be using the system to cool the same amount of lights as you. thanks man!

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No, I do not use Co2 injection. I have a constant flow of fresh air coming in and being exhausted out. The last couple of days have been brutally hot here, (around 100) and I run my lights at night. I close off the intake fan at 5am and let the fresh air intake be an AC vent in the room during the hot daylight hours. Luckily, that helps out quite a bit. When the lights come on, the temp starts out anywhere between 78 and goes up to 84, then back down as the night gets cooler. You could use a Co2 system provided you had the right environmental controls, but right now, that's on hold for me. I'll see how this batch turns out before I dump even more money into equipment. I've used it before, and had success, but I sold all my equipment and took a long hiatus. Just getting back into it recently. I'd imagine if the room weren't on the damn second floor I'd have a much easier time with temps. Can't wait til things cool down! My res temp ranges from 73-78 unfortunately. I'd love to have it be cooler, but there's not much I can do.

Mcgician said:

No, I do not use Co2 injection. I have a constant flow of fresh air coming in and being exhausted out. The last couple of days have been brutally hot here, (around 100) and I run my lights at night. I close off the intake fan at 5am and let the fresh air intake be an AC vent in the room during the hot daylight hours. Luckily, that helps out quite a bit. When the lights come on, the temp starts out anywhere between 78 and goes up to 84, then back down as the night gets cooler. You could use a Co2 system provided you had the right environmental controls, but right now, that's on hold for me. I'll see how this batch turns out before I dump even more money into equipment. I've used it before, and had success, but I sold all my equipment and took a long hiatus. Just getting back into it recently. I'd imagine if the room weren't on the damn second floor I'd have a much easier time with temps. Can't wait til things cool down! My res temp ranges from 73-78 unfortunately. I'd love to have it be cooler, but there's not much I can do.

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thanks for the helpful response man.

so you use the icebox to negate the heat from the lights, and you still exhaust your room. i guess i assumed that since the air coming out of the icebox is cool, then you would want to keep it in the room and not exhaust it.

Mcgician said:

I use a 1/4hp Active Aqua chiller from Hydrofarm.

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Do you use 2 lights? If so, shouldn't you be using at least a 1/2 hp chiller? Would a 1/2 hp chiller cool the rez a bit easier? I know the company suggests minimal 1/4 hp per 1000 watt light.

Mcgician said:

Works very well, but would work a lot better if the room it sits in (bathroom) had a more powerful fan to get rid of the heat it puts off.

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Could one of the handymen/DIY people around here figure out a way to "box" the exhaust from a chiller and vent it outside? I've seen this done with window a/c's. Some DIY guy built a box around the exhaust and vented it out of his attic using an inline fan to help pull it out.

Mcgician said:

At some point, with all the additional power in fans you pretty much just break even powerwise in just getting an AC. My only thing was that AC units cannot be counted on to keep the odors in the room contained. If odor isn't a concern, I'd have gotten an AC unit right from the start. Sure would've been a lot easier. Still a little nervous about posting pics.

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If you got the 1/2 hp chiller I bet the water would be a lot colder and still be cheaper than a/c.

Mcgician said:

I would definitely NOT recommend diagram 4 as a setup choice. The amount of cfm loss would be too much to gain any significant amount of heat dissapation.

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What would be the best setup for 2 lights then? Would a 1/2 chiller do the job better in diagram 4?

You are absolutely right about the chiller. The res temp rises as the the first 6 hours of lights on, and then goes back down when ambient temperatures go down from the cooler night air. I definitely would've been better off with a 1/2 hp unit. Temperatures reach a high of 84 on the hottest days, and less than that on all the others.

As far as diagram 4 goes, I still wouldn't run that setup no matter what chiller I had. The loss in cfm is what you're looking at more than anything else. The best way is to set them up separately with their own dedicated inline fan.

So what you are saying is that you can still do it like they did in diagram 4 and add an extra fan on the first light.

I don't get it. I guess it's cause I can't see it in "action". Wouldn't one stronger inline fan be better than adding another fan? I'm using a TD-150 on hi speed, which is about 250 cfm, on two 1000 watters and my temps are around 80 ambient and 85 under the lights. This is in a tent sucking my central a/c right out of my house. I also use a TD-150 on low speed to exhaust thru my filter and out of my house.

I'm sick and tired of wasting my central a/c and I want to get these ice boxes. But I don't want to deal with the heat from the chiller. I've been looking for someone who may know how to vent them but I may try to do it on my own. Been looking at the 1/2 hp chillers and they are a bit pricey going between $800 to $1000.

I have the option of keeping my rez and chiller right outside my tent in the same room. What I would like to do is stick the chiller in the closet with the exhaust facing inwards. I would keep a fan blowing on the chiller from the front and install an inline fan in my attic above the closet to suck out the hot air. My central a/c will no longer have to chug all night long because only a small amount of air will be leaving the house thru the closet.

If my keep my central a/c at 77 all day how will this effect my rez temps? How does the chiller keep the water cold inside the rez? I'm not getting this concept very well. Like if you set the chiller to 65, how does it keep the rez cool?

Hotwired said:

So what you are saying is that you can still do it like they did in diagram 4 and add an extra fan on the first light.

I don't get it. I guess it's cause I can't see it in "action". Wouldn't one stronger inline fan be better than adding another fan? I'm using a TD-150 on hi speed, which is about 250 cfm, on two 1000 watters and my temps are around 80 ambient and 85 under the lights. This is in a tent sucking my central a/c right out of my house. I also use a TD-150 on low speed to exhaust thru my filter and out of my house.

I'm sick and tired of wasting my central a/c and I want to get these ice boxes. But I don't want to deal with the heat from the chiller. I've been looking for someone who may know how to vent them but I may try to do it on my own. Been looking at the 1/2 hp chillers and they are a bit pricey going between $800 to $1000.

I have the option of keeping my rez and chiller right outside my tent in the same room. What I would like to do is stick the chiller in the closet with the exhaust facing inwards. I would keep a fan blowing on the chiller from the front and install an inline fan in my attic above the closet to suck out the hot air. My central a/c will no longer have to chug all night long because only a small amount of air will be leaving the house thru the closet.

If my keep my central a/c at 77 all day how will this effect my rez temps? How does the chiller keep the water cold inside the rez? I'm not getting this concept very well. Like if you set the chiller to 65, how does it keep the rez cool?

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Are you in NorCal? If so, cruise on over, and I'll show you how it all is working, or BARELY working is more like it. The fact that my chiller isn't strong enough to keep the resevoir cool the entire time the lights are on is the main issue. If it did, I would have the OPTION to exhaust or not. The way I see it, since I'm not using Co2 (that will also be the next time around), having a fresh stream of fresh air is crucial. Unless the air is constantly being exchanged, where will the plants get fresh Co2 from, ya know? The temp in the grow room right now is 81 and the humidity is almost always in the mid 40's. This is my first time around with these things, and come next cycle, Co2, a 1/2HP chiller and a larger carbon filter (able to handle the MAX FAN I have) will all be in the works. Hopefully then, all will work ideally.

I wish I was in Cali.........but I'm no where near there

Good, I'm glad you believe that the 1/2 hp chiller would be ideal. I will look into this. My setup will basically stay the same but I will no longer have to exhaust all my central a/c out of the house to keep the lights and tent cool.

Let me know what you think of this Mcgician:

My setup is exactly like diagram 4 but only in a 5 x 10 tent. This tent is in a closed 12 x 10 room with central a/c and a small 5 x 2 closet.

Let's assume I have a 1/2 hp chiller and a strong inline fan. My central a/c is set at 77 so that is my ambient temp. I place my rez and chiller just like they have it in diagram 4. Of course I would place the chiller exhaust into my closet and suck that out thru the attic and out of the house.

I would use a fan/filter combo to exhaust the "hopefully" cool tent air out of the tent and into the room. This will take care of odors and I will always get constant fresh air this way by keeping a passive intake open.

The question is..........will this idea work? Will the 1/2 hp chiller be able to keep my tent at or around my ambient room temps of 77 degrees? If it does, this will make it so much easier to vent the filtered air right into my room and maintain a constant flow of fresh air.

This is the good thing about having a tent inside a room. You have control of both environments. If I can make this work I can save about $75 a month in electricical usage alone........possibly more.

1/2 hp water chiller = 550 watts

3 ton central a/c = 7000 watts

Tell me I can't save a shitload