Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone!

Thanks for putting so much information in one place for the interested soul to find.

I'm going to be building a greenhouse and aquaponics system in my backyard, as a test bed for looking at a possible commercial system at some point in the future.

I have some money coming this year from an inheritance and so I'm looking at going through all the planning and research, before getting round to the build out.

Reading an another thread about the troubles with fish it Utah, those that are allowed and those that are not allowed, I think I will look at Trout for the fish of choice.

But that brings me to one of the first problems, the heat of the Utah summers, average temperatures are above 16°C from May to October during the day, and above 17°C at night July and August.

It sounds like I will need cooling for the summer days, and as I want to run the system year round, probably heating for the winter.

I've looked at heating solutions first, as I have 6" of snow on the ground at the moment, I'm thinking of using Evacuated Solar Tubes, connected to a PEX system buried in the floor slab for radiant heating, my thoughts were to run a cooling system through a second set of PEX pipes using a variant of the WhiteCapT system.

We have low humidity, and so any system that can help with heating and cooling can help reduce the costs that I've seen get a little silly for winter usage of heaters, and presumably as crazy for cooling in the summers.

That said, a complete build of a 1/2 in ground structure, 1/2 glass / lexan and passive solar North wall, with solar heat, solar power, passive cooling, a rain water collection system, and an home brewed IBC setup, from the .pdf, is going to cost a packet, but I intend to try for best practice from the word go, to shorten the time it takes to get a return out of the system. We will eat well from the growing ability, of both veg and fish.

I'm going to look at the Google Sketchup8 and the additions to draw up my plans for everyone to see and comment on.

Does anyone have experience of Trout and what cooling will likely be required, to pull temperatures down from the low 30° 's, to temperatures that they, (the Trout), thrive at?

Welcome to the forum Christofori,
We love growing trout here, and while we don't try to keep them all through our hot summers, they grow very quickly through the cooler months and allow us to grow another seasonal fish over our hot summer. Water temperatures don't really get as high as ambient day temperatures, so it is a good idea to get a thermometer in to your fish tank and determine exactly what water temps you are dealing with. We love photos and look forward to seeing your progress, good luck and have fun