AACH50HP Water Chiller for Aquarium, Hydroponics, Bathtub – 0.5 HP, Fast Cooling, 90-172 Gallons, Titanium Evaporator – Fittings Included

I have been cold plunging for a year now. I wanted to start out cheap. I bought a soft portable plunge, and a cheap Vevor 1/4 hp chiller. IT all worked and I plunged at around 50 degrees, but I wanted colder. I upgraded to the 1/3 hp Vevor for around $360. IT got me down to 39, but it had to run all day to do it. I even super insulated my plunge to help. The Vevor chiller has the volume leve3l of a cheap walmart window AC. This may not bother most people, but we have the Plunge on our lanai, and my wife likes to sit out there and have a cup of tea. She does not like listening to all the noise, so she would often unplug it, and then forget to plug it back in. This lead to several days of running, to get the temp back down. That whole time it was very noisy.Finally I caught the Active Aqua on a great sale. They do this from time to time, so track the price on camelcamelcamel dot com. Its worth it!So I finally get my active aqua, and let it sit for 24 hours. This is important with any products that contain refrigerant. Not doing so, will shorten the lifespan. After letting the Active Aqua aclimate, I got it all set up. It had larger fittings than my previous Vevor. SO I had to adapt my plumbing. I probably should have just upgraded to new larger tubing, but I did not want to jump in to that much work right away. I just wanted to get this thing going. Right out of the gates, I noticed how quiet this chiller is. The down side is that it showed how loud my danner 950 pump is. I actually ended up making a hush box for my danner pump. It helped quiet my entire system, to a very manageable level. I used the foil backed foam and carpet padding to wrap the pump in sort of an envelope. This made my pump so quite! Since it has 39 degree water running through it all the time, when running, I figured it did not need to be air cooled. The next thing I noticed, is that my system does not need to run as often. I use an Inkbird controller set at 39 degrees. When the temp is above 39 degrees the inkbird turns everything on. This ensures my pump, chiller and ozone are running when they need to. If I just relied on the temp gauge in the chiller, it may turn off, but my pump and ozone would continue to run. I don't need 24 hour circulation. The Active Aqua only goes down to 39 degrees. That is my desired set point, so there was some issues with the chiller kicking off, and the inkbird letting things continue to run. So I went in to the active aqua settings and calibrated the AA to think it was a few degrees warmer than actual. This way, if the inkbird is calling for 39 and its at 39.1, the active aqua will show 41, and continue to run until the inkbird temp range is satisfied. You can calibrate up to 5 degrees warmer, which will push you down to 34 actual. For me, after a year of plunging, 39 still provides about 30 seconds of full shock and awe mode. Perhaps Ill eventually need it to be colder, and I have room to grow. At these temps ever single degree makes a big difference. I plunge for around 2 minutes, and at that time my feet hurt. Now, the bottom of my tub may actually be colder, as my tub is pretty deep, and long. It could be much cooler where my feet are.At the end of the day, I love this active aqua chiller. I spent a lot on cheaper chillers trying to figure it out. I was able to sell each, and not lose much money. But had I known I would still be doing this, the AA would have been the way to go up front. The sound level, and the extra power make this chiller the perfect choice for my set up. I have an inflatable tub I bought here on Amazon. Its 59 inches long, and probably close to 40 inches deep, 36 inches of water level. Its around 120 gallons according tot he amazon ad, but it feels like more. I wrapped it in 10 mm foil faced soft foam (also purchased on Amazon). I run the Danner 950 pump, and a spa ozone that I purchased, you guessed it, right here on Amazon. Now I am thinking about upgrading to a larger Danner 1200 pump. The 950 works, but more flow may help the filtration, and also help mix the water as I am plunging.If you're worried about price, buy the cheap Vevor, and try it out. But if, like me, the Vevor is not powerful enough, or its much too noisy, this Active Aqua is the perfect solution. 1/2 hp seems to be the perfect size for around 120 gallons, if you're insulated. I live in south Florida, so it it works here, it should work most anywhere in north America.

Bought this to use for a cold plunge after doing all the research and settling on this being a trustworthy brand. It sat at my house in the box for the last 2 months while I've been building the rest of the plunge. Finally the day came to hook it up and the results were promising. It cooled the water by 20 degrees in under 30min. But suddenly the unit shut off. After reading the manual and troubleshooting, the cause was that it was overheating and shut off as a safety measure. I checked the back of the unit, as it did seem to be very quiet while it was running, and found the cooling fan to be jammed against the cooling coil, preventing it from functioning. Upon calling Amazon the best they could do was return it with a $200 restocking fee as it was beyond the return window. The manufacturer has yet to respond, as this should be a warranty repair. Overall I'm less than pleased by this product and lack of customer service.

I started cold plunging over a year ago (almost daily). I used my above ground pool all last winter and although I can’t control the temperature (I’ve had to break ice a few times) I can decide how long I stay in.When spring was coming and my pool was getting in the upper 50’s I knew I needed a summertime solution. Enter the Active Aqua 0.5 HP water chiller, a 100 gallon Rubbermaid tub with cover, some tubing and a filter.This is not recommended for outdoor use, but I’ve had it outside, uncovered, in all weather conditions and it has kept my water as cold as I want it (even on 100 degree plus days). It has worked flawlessly and I just brought it in for winter (freezing temps now) and am back to the pool until summer. Highly recommend!

I bought this unit for my pc or computer . My build was i9 10900k 32gb @ 3600mhz corsair rgb ram and 2080 Super. Both the GPU and CPU had a waterblock on it. This machine was sadly only able to cool the pc components down to 39 degrees Fahrenheit . Sure it could keep up with the wattage at load but the problem is the idle time. The unit is apparently programmed to allow 3 minutes for the compressor to cool down. During this time of course your cpu and gpu are putting heat into the water and temps are rising during this time. Despite setting the temperature at 39 degrees and deadzone at 1 the onboard control unit allowed temps to climb 10 degrees higher to 49 degrees before the compressor would cut on.I found a fix for this though by jumping the AC2 wire(red wire) with the compressor wire(brown wire) and the fan wire (forgot which color blue maybe?) with the ac2 wire. This allowed the compressor to run continuously where i got temps down to 26 degrees F. Sure this is a great temperature but its really not good for the compressor to keep it running 24/7. However, i can tell you this unit is very quiet. I wouldnt even mind it running. It is like a window ac unit.Overall I would recommend getting the penguin 1/2 hp unit though because it cam get colder (different refrigerant) and is better quality. I paid 600+$ for this and i dont think it was worth it. It is worth maybe 400$ in my book for our computers but i suggest if you are going this deep to go with penguin and get a chillerbox/freezer to keep you components away from condensation. Although if you are fine with the compressor running 24/7 and not really being able to control temps, go for it. Its at least maybe better than those DIY window ac unit conversions. Also youd need to be okay with the issues noted above.Also the chiller came heavily damaged upon arrival but the blame really is for the postal people who delivered this to me so no need to reflect this in the review.edit: second one i bought can only handle cpu and gpu under load to 45 f. I thus wouldnt recommend it if you want to go colder.