Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

If it's a loan my good friend, perhaps you should just keep it. You know my form - when you call in the loan I may not yet have hooked the fracker up

now you make be feel bad, fracken qld'ers...............

i'll even wire the bastard with two 3 pin plugs...............

Still a foreign language to me Steve. You can explain it all to me when it arrives :-).

I'm off to bed - you'd better get there yourslef and do some damage control

damge control?

when theres Dr who and battle star to watch? WTF?

Quick update. Tank temp this morn before pumps went on was getting up towards 23. Sump only dropped to 17.8 despite 5 degree low overnight.

Tonight at 10pm, tank temp 22.7 degrees (or thereabouts - kinda forgot, but was over 22).

Major loss is definitely in morning due to the gravel temps. Jammed the thermometer in the gravel this moring and it was 7 degrees at 8am. As a result I changed the timer so that the pumps don't come on till 10.30, though the gravel will still be very cold then I expect, givent hat the bed doesn't really get any direct sun until then or a bit later. Gotta get that structure built, which should help raise the bed temps and result in less temp loss throught them.

Still have 3 heaters going - hate to think what it is costing

Would be interesting to see how little pumping you could get away with, maybe 1 hour per day? Would help the heaters keep up...

I'm with you OBA - but I think that without increasing the inside biofilter significantly (definitely on the cards), then a fair bit more than that will be required. Key is to find out when the gravel gets to a reasonable temp - once structure over beds - and have pumps start at that point. I can also increase the insulation on the tank inside the shed a bit. One thing at a time heh - I haven't even started the first yet. Tomorrow night I should commit to doing some drilling - the first step in getting my structure going.

I think the plastic sheeting will net the greatest gain in temps, I would do that first

Don't forget to check gravel temps late afternoon/ early evening,,,you may be surprised how much heat they retain. This extended gain will be increased substantially by a decent cover over the beds,,,not called 'hot-houses" for nothing,,,,AHHH hate agreeing with OBO ,,,but this is correct.

lol you just know im right

increasing the inside( warm) bio-filtration will assist greatly,, did you see in the ebay thread, I got a 160 odd litre sand filter for around $60 delivered
could be filled with bio-balls etc:)

OBO,,,one this ONE paricular subject you are indeed correct.