Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Anyone think a heat tube for solar water heating for fishies etc would be worth a try? One of them evacuated heat tubes.

GF, can you explain this "heat tube"?

STeve

Well, im fairly sure i could not do it justice Steve, just do a quick search evacuated heat tube, or check this site, not too much to wade through and explains the workings at the end i believe. I think i priced just one tube about a year ago and it was around $60 just can not remember the seller now. I may look further as it gets brrr cold this way. Maybe have one tube inside the greenhouse to heat. growbeds and or fishies. As a foot note I think all these are made in china. OK starting to ramble.
Thermomax.com

And for your vewing pleasure, hopefully the picture will show. Made a test heat tube all stainless, added a bit of water, pulled it all into a vacumm, closed the valve and fired up a torch to the pipe and monitored temps at the condensing ball. Dont ask the results other than yes it works, very back yard expermental as no grant funds were in play we didn't keep any records. But with a store bought tube I'm curious if it would be a solution to providing heat when needed or just adding another bug in the works.

Thermomax haha, they're 4 miles from here (Columbia, MD). Small world.

That it is dave, any chance you could wander over there one day and get a price for a tube from them folks? Do they make them there or?

No, apparently it is just a US distributor here. They are manufactured in Italy and the UK.

Pity I checked after i asked, seems all manufacturing is outside U.S.
I ran across a white paper on yellow perch and how they grow more if they do not go through the seasonal temp changes because it takes them longer to reach sexual maturity. Need to do some serious researching to find if they would be a good local fish for me to attempt and keep em warm with free sun power.

Doesn't really clear things up guys. Can you explain the concept. Does the sum heat up the ball at top??

The evacuated tube is super-insulated because of the vacuum layer. The heat that accumulates in the fluid will not escape to the surrounding air. The heated water ball GF has appears to be some different tech.

GF, which part of Iowa are you from? My in-laws are in Boone; my wife and son are visiting them right now. They rode on a model-T today with a friend of her aunt.

p.s. What is your Ohio connection? (everyone here from the US has one)

Sorry VB, when i figure how to post a proper link it will be easier. An evacuated heat tube consists of a tube that contains a liquid in a vacuum the tube is heated by the sun and is vaporized or boiled. As the vapor rises it exchanges heat in the top bulb or in my home experiment the ball, the condensor. In the system the condensors are plugged into a header which would contain another fluid to remove the heat as it flow over the condensors. The pipe also sits in an evacuated glass tube which allows for the suns energy to be used to heat the pipe more effeciently. The glass tubes are like a double walled test tube only bigger, something along the lines of a thermos bottle in design?
Try Daviddarlin.info

Hey Dave, im in nw portion LeMars, and sometimes Hawarden. Don't think boone is far away but im a transplanted iowa resident so cant be sure dont travel much anymore. Hope they enjoyed the ride sounds like fun. My example heat pipe is not to spec's lol

Ohio connection? sorry i missed that mmm i aint got one.

ok you've explained it very well.

Seems like you have access to tig welder and are proficient, just make up a s/s tube for the tank and connect it to sloar collector. Inulate with refrgeration pipe insulation.

main problem for people i guess is working with the S/S

No Steve i cant weld for a hoot, kudos to those that can, just pointed and begged a friend, but my example is no way near capable of providing any heat it was just made as a test of the operation. I was able to use scrap material in the construction, again its not really a functioning item just an example of the operation. One would have to actually purchase an evacuated heat tube system id expect because you would need the glass tube to focus the sun. Up here it gets collllddd so again very curious if this would be a viable option.