DO YOU HAVE A CHILLER ?

IS YOUR CHILLER READY FOR SUMMER ??
 Be Warned !!

Whether or not you believe in global warming, the facts are summer 2008-2009 was a stinker,  2009-2010, 2010-2011 was also very hot and we saw many people lose corals due to excessive heat loading on their tanks. 2012-2013 is shaping up to be quite hot if our lead into summer is anything to judge by.

Day in - Day out, through summer, people walk through our doors upset, telling us their tank has crashed due to one of these hot days we have been experiencing of late.

Typically they tell us, they have left for work in the morning only to come home to find their tank has gone cloudy and or scummy with drooping or dead corals throughout the tank. 

This is simply because they don't have a chiller, or their chiller has developed a fault, or very commonly, become low on gas and just cant cope with the heat load.

The cloudiness is usually signs of Ammonia due to dying and decaying organisms such as corals and other invertebrates, that you have invested good money in, and you can literally loose them in a day.

Corals are one of the few living creatures on earth that live very close to, or within a few degrees of their maximum constant temperature.

In an Reef Aquarium, 27-28 C over time, will see quite a loss of corals, and 28-29 C. constantly over just some days to weeks, will see a noticeable degradation of most of your corals and is considered a dangerously high temp for corals generally.

Depending on where your corals come from, 29-30 C is seriously bad news and its usually all over for them as they hit 30-31 C.

Fish on the other hand, can handle the elevated heat a little better than corals, but seeing as most people do run corals with their fish, the corals are the main concern as it now becomes a matter of limits and not a degree of hardiness, as it is with only fish.

The message here is:

If you live in a temperate to tropical zone and have a tank with a sizable investment in corals....YOU REALLY MUST HAVE A CHILLER !!!

Questions regarding Chiller Symptoms & Problems

Does you chiller need servicing or repairs ?

Maybe its simply just dead, ?

Is your chiller not cooling the tank like it did last summer. ?

Is your chiller noisy, ?

Is your chiller running constantly or more than usual. ?                                                                    

Is your chiller display not reading correctly or as it should. ?

Is your chiller blowing fuses or your earth leakage breaker. ?

Maybe you chiller simply need a re-gas. ?

Dont throw the chiller out just yet, maybe it just need a service, but ASAP.

Depending on how busy we are, the nature of the problem, and if our refrigeration guy is here, we can sometimes service your chiller on the spot or same day, but you will need read thoroughly and sign a service authority. 

Generalised inspection costs. 

A $55 inspection fee is payable up front, to cover time involved to open the unit, diagnose the problem and explain what we think the fault is and give estimate of any further costs to fix.

Please understand we must attend to our retail customers first and service jobs like these unfortunately must take a back seat if we don't have the resources on the day. 

Marine Boutique has all the necessary service equipment to diagnose, evacuate, re-gas (R134A, R404A, R410) , clean, re-solder and repair electricals, electronics, pipework, coils and fans.

IS YOUR FAULTY CHILLER STILL UNDER WARRANTY

Even if you purchased you chiller from another aquarium store, we can usually still fix it under warranty as we have an established relationship with the various suppliers of this equipment.

This is something that no other aquarium in Australia has the in-house expertise, to diagnose and repair these types of units.

Simply bring us your proof of purchase with the chiller containing the correct serial number, and we can chase up the warranty for you, but please ask the store where you purchased it from to supply the name of the wholesaler that supplied the unit to them as some brands over time move from wholesaler to wholesaler.

Hailea chillers have been moved around between various suppliers over the past few years and it looks like TECO chillers are on the move too, so we need to know which supplier it came from to see if we can obtain an effective warranty from that supplier. Please remember the supplier does reserve the right to deal with the warranty how they see fit though.

CHILLER BRANDS WE SERVICE

Marine Boutique has been authorised by a number of suppliers, to service the Sydney or eastern seaboard for brands such as TECO by ABS Technologies in Adelaide to name just one.

For instance, ABS Technologies, the sole importer and distributor of the TECO range of premium chillers, appointed Marine Boutique as an alternate service centre to themselves to prevent damage to chillers in transit, when travelling back and forth to Adelaide and Sydney.

We do of course also service all other brands of chillers including Hailea, Resun, Aqua-One to name a few.

Please be warned, servicing some of these chillers is no simple feat, as most units use hermetically sealed compressors, with no ability to attach service  gauges for checking or re-gasing.

OUR SERVICING ABILLITIES
Normal Re-Gasing of portable units starts around $250 inc GST depending on the size of the unit. 

On-Site servicing for larger non portable units is available, but please call for an estimate.

Depending on the fault of course, it may sometimes be far simpler and cheaper to replace the unit.

As stated above, we do charge $55 Inc GST to evaluate the unit first and in some cases we can remove that from the final price should you proceed with the repair, depending on how long it takes to diagnose the fault.

YES,... We can and do also repair the internal electricals and electronics as we have qualified electronic engineers and electricians on-site as well as licensed refrigeration mechanics.

We carry all the specialised tools, such as electronic soldering and diagnostic equipment, gas reclaim units, service gauges, flaring tools, evac pumps, spare compressors for different models and a variety of gas including R22, R134A, 404A, and R410A etc to name a few.

So do drop us a line and lets see if we can get you up and running again before summer hits hard.

Team Marine Boutique.