+ WHAT BENEFIT WILL I GET FROM WATER-COOLING?
a. Water-cooling your garden will give you many benefits, most importantly removing the heat that is generated from the high-intensity grow lights in your garden! By utilizing water-cooling, the bulb heat generated can be completely removed from the environmental equation – thus allowing for cooler gardens, happier plants, and less stress on both you and your plants.

b. Cooling via water allows you to place the lights lower down on your plant canopy – offering better light penetration, increased lumens, and more vigorous growth – without hurting the plants from excessive heat this would cause using uncooled or in some cases, poorly air-cooled systems.

c. Efficiency! Water is scientifically proven as a better heat absorbent than heat. Water has a thermal conductivity of 0.6W (m*K) which is much higher than the thermal conductivity of air which is only 0.03W/(m*K) – and a much higher specific heat capacity than air. What this means is that water can absorb and remove from your garden 4 times the heat nearly 20 times faster than air! Thus the energy that is produced by the chiller used to chill the water is not wasted! Studies have shown that around 70% of the power consumed by an AC system goes to POWERING THE SYSTEM – not cooling the air. So you are only getting 30% cooling capacity for the same amount of electricity used. Talk about saving power!

d. Water cooling can allow you to create a "sealed room" garden. Since no holes are cut in your room to duct air (either via air conditioning or air-cooled fans), you can more accurately control your internal environment. External CO2 is not sucked out of the room, odors are controlled, and your internal garden variables are much more easily controlled. You can actually install fresh air exchange that you control if you prefer to introduce fresh air from time to time, instead of plugging leaks or fighting against a leaky room.

+ ISN’T WATER COOLING COMPLICATED?
Water cooling is no more complicated than any of the other systems or things required to garden indoors. If you grow hydroponically, you already use pumps, water, reservoirs, etc.. which you also do setting up a water-cooled system. If you’ve set up a garden and have wired electricity, then you have already done more complicated work than setting up a water-cooled garden! Simply put – a water-cooled system is nothing more than a reservoir holding water, a pump that recirculates that water through a chiller (which of course is what is making that water cold), then the transport system that carries that cold water through your water-cooled devices and the hot water back to the reservoir. Simple systems can be setup in minutes, more complicated ones in hours.

+ AM I REALLY SAVING MONEY IF I’M JUST TRADING THE ELECTRICITY OF AN AC FOR THAT OF A CHILLER?
Yes! Don’t compare BTU to BTU or Amps to Amps when looking at chillers and AC units, because once again – it comes down to the SCIENCE of cooling. Because water is more effective and efficient than air cooling (See FAQ # 1.c for the science) – your chiller will operate more efficiently than your AC. When it reaches its desired cooling point – it shuts off! Many AC units (especially those being made to work overtime to cool hot grow rooms) run continuously and consume MUCH more power than a chiller. And as mentioned before, roughly 70% of the energy used to run an AC is to power up the AC, not even cool the room!

+ DO I HAVE TO HAVE A FAN AND ICE FLOW FOR EACH REFLECTOR? OR CAN I USE ONE FAN FOR MULTIPLE REFLECTORS AND ICE FLOWS?
Several reflectors can daisy chained together and all use one fan. You need approximately 250 cfm through each reflector...that doesn't meant that you need a 750 cfm for three reflectors. It means that the air flowing through each reflector needs to average 250 cfm, and the exiting air from the last reflector should be at this measurement. Several factors influence fan CFM, including bends or ducting in the chain, efficiency of the fan, as well as air leaks in reflectors or other connections.

+ CAN I "MAKE AC" FROM USING A CHILLER AND GET RID OF MY AC?
Yes, this is possible assuming all your variables are correctly sized and done right. By having a big enough chiller to more than cover the heat sources in your room (lights, water-cooled CO2 generators, ballasts, etc..) then by installing larger heat exchangers (Ice Flows) connected to fans (we recommend 8" Ice Flows with a fan directly attached) – you can create "spot AC" throughout your room. Not only that, but the air coming out of your light chain is also cooler. If you have the right chiller size and want to not only cool your lights but cool your room, then the rule of thumb is 20 degree temperature differential between what the chiller is set at and the desired room temperature (ex: chiller set at 55, desired room temp at 75). Experimentation is often required to "dial it in" and get the right water temperature.