Aqua Euro USA 1/10, 1/4 or JBJ Arctica 1/4? Please Help

[pablomay28]

Ok so it was hot this week end in San Diego and my chiller took about 1hr to cool from 81.5 to 79. I have my chiller set at 78, I like it to be between 78-81.5. My chiller is a Oceanic 1/6 rated for 90 gal. I have a RSM 250 66gal running the stock pump on the left chamber, stock skimmer, and an Eheim Compact + 3000 externaly as a return pump through the chiller. I noticed a very small oil leak in the chiller. The chiller has been run for 4 yrs total, 3 of them very heavily with the previous owner he had the cooling fans off and the chiller basically ran for 3 yrs constantly. I have cleaned the chiller with a vinegar solution removing nasty gunk and it is still very slow at cooling, my bill went up $100-$150 during the summer. I am considering the above mentioned chillers all 3 will draw less than half the power my current one does.

My question to you fellow reefers is if you have the 1/10 or 1/4 how long does it take to cool the water down to your set temp once it comes on?

JBJ Arctica 1/10 1270 BTU 2.63 Amps rated for 130gal $559

Aqua Euro 1/10 1485 BTU 2.20 Amps rated for 80gal $440

Aqua Euro 1/4 3200 BTU 3.00 Amps rated for 170gal $600

Current set up

Oceanic 1/6 2060 BTU 6.00 Amps rated for 90gal

 

[reefer gladness]

I have a 1/10HP Aqua Euro on a similar sized system and I'm just a little further north than you. I run a 2-stage cooling system and the chiller rarely comes on so I never really time how long it runs.

Most of my cooling is evaporative, I use small cooling fans over the sump and display tank which is good for a couple degrees of cooling. I like to run between 77.5 and 79.0 in the summer so my cooling fans come on at 77.7 and if they can't keep up the chiller comes on at 79.0 and drops it down to 77.5.

The thermostat on the Aqua Euro is complete bunk, I mean completely unusable IMO but it gave me a good excuse to buy a controller.

The real reason I would buy the JBJ over the Aqua Euro is the ability to handle a much wider range of water flow through the unit. The AE can handle 200-315 GPH and if you go over that by much it starts shutting down early (I run the Eheim 1262 900GPH return pump). The JBJ can handle 240-960 GPH which doesn't restrict your pump selection or require extra plumbing.

PS: RSM tanks tend to run warm, at least my 130D did. LED's help a lot in terms of cooling.