Glycol pump alternative

[mliptack]

I’m working on building a glycol system to chill fermenters looking at the expensive homebrew options out there and pumps run easily $40 for a submersible aquarium pump that affords higher head pressure while sacrificing lower flow.
Since this pump will be in a cold glycol bath it needs to be able to operate at 28*F and it needs to consume a low amount of power to minimize the amount of extra work on the chiller.
What pumps work great for this? Looking for something with a 3/8 hose barb fitting; <20w; <$20 and either 120v or 12v

most of the commercially available pumps run at12v; 16’ head and I am not sure on LPM or GPH.These pumps are $40 on the low side

thanks for your help!

Cheers!
Max

 

[Dland]

I built a glycol system and started w a cheep pond pump. That pump failed pretty quickly, due to poor construction I think. I ended up going with a commercial grade fluid pump that retails for around $200. Found a couple new/old box on ebay for about $80 each.

Probably not what you want tpo hear, but it is unlikely you will get a new glycol pump that does the job long term for the budget you set.

 

[Ridenour64]

I built a DIY glycol system a while back. Bought a 600 GPH pond pump from harbor freight. I used it for 1.5-2 years before I sold the entire system to someone. The pump worked fine the entire time I used it and worked fine when I sold it. I was skeptical when I bought it though so I bought the extended warranty. I believe the smallest barb it came with was 1/2” but I used a reducer down to I believe 3/8”

 

[mliptack]

amazon has this from penguin for $60 https://amzn.to/37eXekH and it looks like spike has the same under their own name for $40 with that rate I figure there’s someone out there whose got it for $20...

I don’t expect a pump at that cost to last 5yrs, but I also don’t expect the same from one at $200 when operating under those conditions.

 

[Gruel]

I have been using two of these small pumps, which cost $8/pump; one of them has been running submerged in water/glycol coolant (2:1 mix) for a few months now without problems. It might be too small for your application though. I'm using it to pump coolant through a loop with up to two 5 gallon kegs and one 7.5 gallon fermenter in series.