Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Howdy everyone, I have been wanting to setup a greenhouse outside for a while and this fall I finally took the plunge. My original design was a bit bigger then what I ended up with. I have a 9.5 foot long by 10.5 foot wide by 9 feet tall. And also the shed that I have it connected to had settled so I ended up with a east facing lean-to. The front and back walls are covered with 1/2 inch Lexan that was being scraped by work so I scooped it up. The east facing side is made up of two portions, one at about 42 degrees and the second at about 20 degrees. The upper most portion being 20 degrees has Lexan on it but the larger portion has 6 mill plastic sheet covering it. This spring I should have more money to get a better covering on it.

The Aquaponics portion I plan on doing a 250 Gallon tank. I would like to do the vertical pipes for strawberries. And beds for vegetables. Planning on a single run across the top rafters to allow to aerate the water grow duck weed to feed the fish.

I also picked up an Arduino board to run as a controller for the entire system. I have 500 Watts of solar panels and the charge control and converter to power everything. All I need to pick up are the deep cycle batteries. I'm a tech guy so I plan to write my own windows 8 phone software to control the system remotely.

For heating I plan on using passive heat and have built the "black pop can heater" system you see on youtube. I will supplement additional heat as I need it using electrical heaters piping hot air into the 24" of soil below the greenhouse.

I still have a ways to go as I am out there for an hour or two every day after work cutting wood and Lexan.

Off to a good start there nzemke.

A Tech guy who is very crafty as well, looks good. do you think will you get enough sunshine?

Thank you arbe, slowboat
I tend to be a jack of all trades...or at least not scared to try my hands at something at least once. And slowboat I keep wondering the same thing. I may be running a lot of additional lighting I keep thinking this is just to get started. Hoping to build a free standing greenhouse in another year or two. At that point this would become the fishery.

Welcome Nzemke,

Good looking start.

Greenhouse might overheat depending on size of and where the pop can heater faces. I have roughly a 48 sq ft screen collector and it kicks the temp up 20 degrees F in a 600 cubic foot uninsulated garage on sunny days (pretty rare around here). Have you got a thermostat and snap disc controller wired in already?

If you have questions, just post and someone will know the answer.

Cheers

I anticipate setting it up on the roof of the shed, then taking it down during the summer months as it gets rather hot on it's own in the middle of the desert

Plan for that new greenhouse in a year

Check out Web4deb's greenhouse. That thing gives me greenhouse envy.

Hopefully you will get enough light, running supplementary light and heat will be a costly exercise. It would be interesting to see if the black can heater will be enough to keep your water temps up as well