I have tried using a glass door peltier wine cooler cabinet as a mini-terrarium, but am having trouble maintaining a reasonable humidity, even when using a fogger inside. I think the problem is that the combination of the fan and the cold surface of the peltier heatsink causes any moisture in the air to condense. I would be interested to know if the above recirculation cooler method has the same issue.
Glycerol can be used as an alternative to glycol.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifreeze#Primary_agents
But car antifreeze would be far better at romoving the heat from the enclosure than windsheild wiper fluid.
There are echofriendly versions if that is the issue.
Wowza - good catch... 8oz every hour or two before needing a re-cool. So with a pump moving 90 gph through this contraption, it'd probably exceed that capacity by far, no?
I'm interested in two questions:
1) How cold does the water need to be going into the radiator to produce a noticeable temperature drop?
2) Upon exiting the radiator, how much warmer is the water?
If only a little bit of heat is transferred into the fluid upon every pass through the radiator and it doesn't leave a helluvalot warmer than it entered, then this might still work, since this is a closed system. In normal use, this thing would have a reservoir or room-temperature water constantly refilling it after the cold water is depleted; in this application only a small bit of cool water would be drawn and replaced by slightly less cool water... though I agree, the reviews are somewhat off-putting...
Ha!! OK OK, uncle!! I knew my question was more complicated than it sounded.
I just found this guy: http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/app/2948100396.html
Sweet. If it's still available I might spring for it...