Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

We're moving from Texas to Grass Lake Michigan. I'm planning for a self-contained Aquaponics greenhouse. The greenhouse will be a heavily insulated Cedar 8x12. (see link)

http://cedarbuilt.homestead.com/gogreenspecial.html

According to weather history, we can expect an average low of 16F and an avg high of 82F (I would plan for a setup that can go 0-100F.

My main concern is the fish and keeping them alive during the winter months. We are planning for a 300 gallon tank with two grow beds with ~40 gallon capacity with grow media.

I have 3 questions:

1) We plan to use a galvanized stock tank sunk into the ground so to appear like a pond. I understand this is good for maintaining cool temps during summer months, but I'm not familiar with how sunken tanks fair in colder weather. Is this something that would require additional insulation?

2) With colder temps, I understand heating is essential. Would we need to heat both the water AND the air or would it be possible to heat the water OR air and keep everything alive and happy?

3) What fish would recommended for this setup?

Thank you

You can try the search function to see what is araound.. but there is now SOOOO much, that it's hard to find what you want.. try and search for memebrs in similar areas...
I am confident that I have read where folk remove their stock to indoor systems over deep winter, possibly using aquarium type Bio filtration..


There are those who claim that gal tanks are a NoNo... well, I assume this, as they claim their stock died, after rain flowed from gal-roofing..
ME - no opinion... Intuition would suggest this is not right, but... how can you argue against folk claiming to have tested the death waters...
One would think there would be a paint that could be used..
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Again, try looking at Member's Systems and get an idea of what others have experienced..
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And if you are seriously keen, and confident that you can use that Gal-Tank, in ground, have a look at this thread..
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=16345&hilit=Gordon

Gordon lives in an area known for cold winter nights.. (not snow - normally)
He added solar heating, whilst burying the tank.... all very practical, and better with a metal tank..
Added insulation could help, provided that it was hydro-phobic eg polythene foam or even those foam mats that clip together for children's soft fall...
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I should have added that the sunken tank would have a pond liner and not just bare metal.

In Australia that gal water tanks come covered in a layer of plastic (From memory it is called Aquaplate) that protects the water from the gal. If you don't have this you soon end up with dead fish.

Heating any system takes a massive amount of energy and is not for the faint hearted.

The best way to heat is to heat the water but you need to keep the water AND the air warm. If the air is cold you will have masses of heat loss from the water to the air. This means that the whole GH must be insulated including the ground in seriously cold areas.

Sinking tanks into the ground does NOT insulate them. What it does is make them more thermally stable because instead of just the thermal mass of the water you also have the thermal mass of the ground around the tank. Sometimes this is a good thing some times not.

Its a good thing when you want to keep a cold water fish and the year round ground temperature is about 17c. It is a bad thing when you want to keep warm water fish and the year round ground temp is lower than you want.

Best bet is choose a fish that can survive all year round without active climate control or alternate fish species between winter and summer.