Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Could we bury a 250gl IBC in the ground to control water temps. in the winter and summer here in Central Florida to raise Blue Tilapia?

We would be putting down some sort ground cover to protect the tank, ie...roof membrane, styrofoam or maybe someone has another suggestion for what to put in the hole???

Also would it be wise to cover the top upper half with say water heater wrap or styrofoam?

Yes, you can, and yes it will help regulate temps. Are you doing an aquaponic system or just the tilapia?

We're doing an Aquaponic system. What would be the best liner for the bottom of the hole?

Remember an IBC is flexible so if you just throw one in a hole and backfill you could crush it.

Would that apply as well if it came with the cage? We were going with the BYAP instructions to build a IBC system from the video we saw on YouTube (that brought us to this lovely forum).

Burying your ibc will do nothing to control temps as soon as you pump your water to the beds ect they are the best heat sink and the water will take on the ambient air temp so if the air temp is 50 say pump the water through the grow beds even though the tank is buried the water will soon be 50 only way to control temps is have tank and beds in a glass house or a temp controlled room

What if we winterized the pipes...would that help? I forgot to mention that we also have this:

http://www.amazon.com/Swiss-Gear-Smart-10-Foot-Screenhouse/dp/B000N5395U/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

We would be able to use this to cover the whole system during a cold snaps. We already own 2 of the side walls, we purchased for the screen room, we would only have to purchase the other 2.

It will make some difference but you will probably find that it does not make a significant difference.

Also I believe that tilapia require a temperature higher than ground temperature so given that you would need to heat the system you might be better off insulating the system rather than attempting to increase its thermal mass by burying.

Controlling the temperature in AP systems requires excellent environmental controls that are beyond the budget of most backyard systems. A key thing to remember is that the temp in your system is better controlled by containing it within a controlled environment rather than insulating or buyring individual components.

Short answer is no.

To have a meaningful affect you have to isolate the system from its environment and then add or remove energy.

This means that the entire system has be to heated (in this case) and insulated. Basically if you hold the air around the system at the target temp then the water will be at the required temp. To keep the air at the required temp everything has to be in a climate controlled greenhouse or similar.

Yeh agreed save the time and effort burying the IBC and consider building a greenhouse over the whole system instead.It would be more beneficial in my opinion

If you can't keep the fish year round normally without burying, then burying it is not going to make enough difference that you could then keep them.. As Stuart says, you really need to enclose the area...

Edit... and Jono..

I think that would be a great idea but we would have a whole other series of problems come summer time here in Central Florida with the heat (unless our greenhouse had air conditioning of course).

You can remove the poly and add shade cloth during the Summer, if you don't want to have temperature control. Then leave covered and use pull up sides and doors to adjust temps during the Winter. In my GH, I still needed some additional heat when we had the 3-4 days of cold, cloudy weather. Usually, you just bury the sump, that way you don't need to have your GB's so high that they're hard to work in. In my case, I'm thinking of adding another FT, and will just insulate it and then use a heater during the Winter. Do cover the top, that's where most of you heat goes...heat rises. A little fact that I didn't think about when building my system. I have a GB over the FT...making it very hard to cover the tank.

Thanks for the advice. We were gonna go with the plans I saw in the BYAP Youtube video, except not put the GB on the FT.