Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Pictures of one of the new tanks. Have six, three with bottoms and three without. The no bottom ones were stacked on top of the others if that makes sence to ya. Next to a couple IBC's for size comparison.
Two holes in each tank one near the bottom and one midway up.
Picked up a Shell and Tube heat exchanger as well. It came off an Ammonia screw compressor, just a little 100hp unit. It seems to be in good shape just have to wash it all up as the shell side was the oil side. The tubes are stainless.

Here is the Shell and Tube heat exchanger, without the endcaps installed. Will be testing it in the next few days.
Set up the evacuated tube collector in the green house, its just looping 15 gallons of water. Started with 55 deg water and after 1 hour its 64 deg. Not all from the collector I suspect but a good rise just the same. I'll be setting it up to feed the heat exchanger and heating up the basement system in the hopes of breeding some fishies.

Where is the edit function?

That is a nice little evac tube heat collector you have there. Where do you find such a compact unit?

They are very common on boats for A/C to Saltwater cooling.

I was asking about the evacuated tube heat collector - not the heat exchanger.

Dont be sad - be happy! I still love ya!

i had a dose of the Steve's....

Hey GF, how are you sourcing all this cool stuff? Is there an Ag classified paper or something?

Hamish, the collector was purchased thru Silicon solar (dot) com.
Dave, work discards they throw it away I snag it if its usable for AP. Just in case an expansion is in order. We all know what its like to have the AP bug, more tanks more grow beds more more more...... Damm this addiction it is never sated!

Ahhh - thanks for that - had a look at the dealer demo models - $150 doesnt seem too bad - nice and compact too! Perfect if it does what I need it to. WIll be really interested to see the results and see if it will ouput enough to keep the tank warm Keep us updated

Been busy, moved the basement system up into the garage since weather has gotten warmer, still not growing anything in it though.
Set up one of the round tanks to test the abilities of the tube collector. The tank has a pump feeding the collector then back to the tank using garden hose. I had thought I had declorinated the water enough, (still had a slight smell) so I put some guppies in to see how they reacted to the collector. It has copper pipe so I wanted to see if they would live. Well after three deaths I gave up for a few days untill the water was aged a bit more.
Have 9 guppies in there for about 24 hours and they are fine so I hooked up the collector and am now heating the water while the sun is out. I'll keep this going for a bit in the hopes the guppies show no ill effects.

Hoping for some design help with the bottomless round tanks. Should I cut em up for grow beds, plastic welding a bottom to them?
Should I cut them up to make a big oval grow bed?
Should I cut em like blue barrel halves and make a long grow bed?
Any thoughts would be most welcome.

(mumbles something about premature posting)....

Cool, I'd say cut them up so they're half as tall and use them for gravel beds. Sit them on a shallow pond liner lagoon.