Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Tricky bit would be getting it set right, they are pretty sensitive.

'It has a time delay circuit so that it is not affected by sudden or brief change in light level caused by intermittent cloud cover, reflections, vehicular lights or lighting'.

Anyone want to buy it. It's still sealed in it's packet

Hay Veggue boy,
Sounds like we are tinkering with almost exactly the same idea!

I left the set up exactly as it was over night with the pump comming on at half hour intervals. I think the plastic cover must totally have killed the radiant chiller idea. Water temp in the morning was still above the air temp.

I've pulled back the clear plastic cover and have the pump running constant today. Will see how the numbers compare for today and tonight.

Next time I have reason to go into town, perhaps I'll stop by and pick up one of them aluminum coils from Aquatic Eco Systems unless some one can tell me a good reason not to use aluminum.

Veggue

VB's gone all tofu like

I made a solar collector our of copper roof sheeting and brazed on copper tubing. It made steam in very little time. I used plexiglass to cover the collector and I used foam board to insulate the back and sides. That was a bad idea. Both the foam and the plexiglass melted. So use real glass for certain.

I just love funny typos

I have tons of typos, lol

small scale exp

Pump running constant
Time 12:25 medium to light overcast today
Air temp in shade 85 F
Water temp in container 98 F

1:20 pm
air temp 87 F
Water temp 102 F

2:30 pm
Air temp 90 F
Water 106 F

Rain started to threaten before 4 pm and temp was down to 98 F in the container
Air temp 83 F.

How much water in the container? How big is the collector?

At the moment the container is a 50 gallon storage bin but I only put about 15 gallons in it. It is not insulated.

I don't know how much tubing is in the coil, it is just what I had left over from a 1000 foot roll from doing drip irrigation around the yard. I would guess only around 200 ft but I didn't stretch it out to measure. Here is a pic in case that would help with scale.

Perhaps the best way to control the pump is to use a differential themostat with two sensors.
when the panel water temp exceeds the tank temp by a set differential the pump runs. When the differential drops below the setpoint the pump stops.
It wouldn`t matter what the actual temperatures are as its just looking at the temperature difference. For example, panel 70F/ tank 40F or 60F/30F etc. The differential setting can be variable from a few degrees upwards.

Your 57L will gain about 125 btu per deg F, so when the water reaches 27F above start temperature you`ll have gained a free kilowatt