Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Seriously Chappo, to me, you do.

Please take the time to read a document titled Climate Code Red (the original published in Feb08 can be downloaded from the link). You might change your mind about wasting Energy needlessly.

Grow the right fish (and plants for that matter) that suites your climate - or come up with a sustainable way to 'manage' your climate...

This thread has gone quite did i say something wrong

you can only write so many posts at a time

Lets just say that those of us that have AP systems, and have to adjust the systems to suit the temperatures, know what it is like and how it all works, and there are those who dont

I think myles summed up what most of us do.

OBO,,, my family prefer a varied diet,,several types of fish , fowl, beef and numerous vegetables and fruit available at the same time,,,,I guess it's just superior genetics,,,,don't feel bad.We all need to adapt with what we have , some just have more.

Have AP systems,,agreed,,live in the middle of nowhere,,,due to lack of abiltyto compete,,,MOST likely
Adjust system temps without sufficient thought,,,agree.


Finally,,,OBO has summed up "what most of you do"..........,does this mean change cannot be for the better?

in florida, when temps are forecast to be below freezing, Strawberry and Orange farmers turn on the sprinklers and water all night long and into the next day if temps require it. This coats everything in a block of ice.

I wonder why, they do that...

To sum it all up.

To maintain a better than ambient temp - bury the tanks in the ground. This uses the ground as a big thermal blanket. Only applies if your ground temps are warmer than your average air temp. Mine are.

Obviously insulating below ground tanks may help as well, but would reduce heat gain from the soil.

However, to run a system warmer than ambient by say 10 deg c or more, insulated beds, insulated tanks with some form of heating, in a double skin greenhouse would be the only efficient way to do it.

Hows that?

The practice of turning the water on in the groves can often save the harvest. First, if the freeze is of short duration, the warm water provides some protection. Second, if it is a really hard freeze, the water freezing actually releases some heat energy. Finally, the ice itself provides a little bit of insulation from very cold air and protects the plants from the wind chill and dehydration.

Now you are talking

Made a bo bo today and left the outside water running through the glasshouse [so all good ] the glashouse went from 15.5 down to 14.2 and the outside went from 12 up to 13.9 silvers in the 1000 tank still eating just tap on the top and they all go to just near the window

Also, leaves have a slightly lower freezing temperature than pure water: as long as some water is still liquid outside that ice block it's temperature is not low enough for the tree or fruit to be damaged.

And water releases a LOT of energy in freezing (and absorbs it in thawing), so a little water goes a long way for warming them just enough. The energy required to melt ice is roughly the same as that required to raise the temp of that melted water to boiling (from 0 to 80degC or 32 to 176degF). OK, so maybe that is only boiling temperature if one is really high....

i dont think it actually releases energy compared to having to have energy removed from it, but yes, end result is the same

cool little practical experiment that shows conservation of energy and the specific and latent heat concepts is to "melt" ice with salt.

the frozen water is at a maximum of 0C

adding salt makes a brine solution that will have a much lower freezing temperature (say -10C for an example)

thus the ice "melts".

but to not violate any laws of physics if you actually measure the temperature of the resultant liquid you will find it is much lower than 0C (which the ice was to start with!) -10C for the brine "example" above.

The latent heat (in KJ) that was removed from the water to freeze it has now been removed from the brine solution as specific heat (hence a lowering of actual temperature.)

I dont know why i bored you all with that, but specific and latent heats are a favourite of mine

temperature is not an absolute measure of energy, but relies on both the material and if any phase change (solid, liquid, gas) has occured

Also there is energy in the form of heat in any substance with a temperature above -273C

Depends Steve...think of it as a 'buffer' - as long as there is a mix of solid and liquid (ignoring impurities like salt which change in concentration as it freezes) it will try to stay at the melting point.

I've got a hand warmer kinda like this which warms up to about 55°C. You click the disc and it suddenly goes into crystalisation and warms up. I assume that it's a stable supersaturated solution. I don't understand it but it's neat anyway

if anyone asks, Steve made me go offtopic

correct, supersaturated solution

cool

And I suppose you make Bose-Einstein condensates in your shed, too Steve?