Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Have to put my eyes back in Yes still cold - very similar to kalgoorlie temps, but for some reason my water is 5 degrees warmer

Maybe that's because your growbeds are buried OBO.... probably tend to retain a slightly higher ambient temp transferred to the water during the day.... Gemmell is running steel bathtubs above ground

See ? ,,,now I know you where just wrong,,,

Oh, and Gemmell only has a 1000ltr thermal mass.... fish tank..... much more susceptible to temp swings than yours OBO

Yeah, still a graduall downward trend though

And it's only the start of winter!!

Ammonia still sitting up at 1.0 or maybe a bit less. Luckily water temps are at about 7 this morn, and the fish seem to be OK. Still not feeding them though.

I reckon your right about the bathtubs rope, they're like big metal heatsinks. I think Im' going to have to enclose the whole thing in a greenhouse or it'll be useless in Winter & Summer.

If I get some time, I'll put up a PVC greenhouse, but it's not going to happen for a couple of weeks because I'm busy! Might see if I can enlist some help from a fellow aquaponics'er in canberra.

Thanks to a great link from these forums (http://www.flippersandfins.net/flexibacter.htm#) - I now know what is causing this:



According to that link, about half way down:
The natural course of “Mouth Fungus” is that the white fuzzies or patches are followed within a day or two by redness, ulceration and necrosis, which means that the mouth quickly turns into a gnarly mess!

I've also noticed the "white fungus" on my fish. I am now edumacated! It's not fungus, it's bacteria. Fantastic link. Thank you to Trevor who posted it in this thread

Also, it sounds like this might be worth a shot if it gets really bad:
Kanamycin (Kanaplex, Kanacyn) daily in the water is a great first choice for treating Flexibacter and it usually does not harm the biological filter (the “good guy” bacteria).

It does say that salt lessens/fixes it.

Water temps today: 5 degrees at 9am, 7.5 degrees at 6pm.

I took the day off to try and rectify just this problem. I was really aiming to put up a greenhouse frame (I bought 30m of 20mm pressure pipe to do it too), but I didn't get around to it. The other things on the TODO list were:

• Insulate the tank a little better
• Get some more warmth into the system using black pipe

Oh, i forgot to mention, I got this black pipe from a hydro store which is food safe, so no poly pipe for me! I got about 15m of it. The aim was to use some of the glass I had in the shed to build a little mini greenhouse box which would house the pipe. It would trap the sun (probably painted black on the inside) and heat the pipe. So I was playing with the glass when I put it on the bathtubs. It was an amazing fit. So I just plonked my pipe down on the growbed and put the glass over it. The end result:



We'll see if it actually does anything to the temps. I'm sure the strawbs will love it.

So secondly, I had to insulate the tank. I stole some bubblewrap from work for this purpose. Now my tank looks like it's wearing a pink dress:



I shall report back on whether any of efforts improve the temperatures.

I'm pretty much running with ammonia between 1.0 and 0.5. Haven't fed them in a while, but they're not particularly interested even when I do. Nitrates are still up around 5 though.

Even if it gives u 2-3 degrees above ur current highs and lows it might be enough to kick the bacteria along. The whole thing is kinda in suspended animation. Be interested to see ur temps next few days.
Heating wands are reasonable hexy to run but in ur case mate, it just may be worth getting a couple 300 watters. 30 bucks each and u will get those minimums comfortably up to 11-12 or more.

Going to buy one at lunch time today! I'll get a heater which should get me through the worst of it. I figure 300watts is like leaving a computer on. I make sure I turn mine off anyway.

MAX water temp yesterday 6 degrees. This morning it's at 4 degrees.

It doesn't help that the days are cold and wet (my solar heater does nothing without a sun) and that the max temperature forecast for the next few days is 10, 9, 9.....MAX. Mins are 1 1 -1...

Sad to see your Solar is doing close to nil,.....,long term , have you seen the evacuated glass tube style Solars',,most have food grade stainless steel end tanks so extra safe.

I got 2 X 200 Watt heaters on ebay for $5 plus 10 postage,,AUD $7.50 each delivered.


Back to NOW,,,the 300 W heater will cost about $1.05 per day to run ( 24 hours a day),,better insulation ( especially on the top and sides will be a very good investment. If money is super short,,,newspaper is an excellent insultor if you can keep it dry.Maybe bubble wrap layer , newspaper then bubble wrap??? Don't skimp on the newspaper,,,at least 20pages thick.

Hey Gemmel,
I think you said you get the bubble wrap free - can you get enough for 5-10 layers of it? The one layer or so that you have won't do much.

Same with your little solar collector - if you have any more louvres to cover it right over, it'll stop warm air rising up and leaking out, dragging cold air in to replace it. Dunno how much difference it'll make, and I'm guessing you don't have more glass or you would've covered both growbeds.

With a bigger budget you might find it's better to sling a really long coil on your roof and hook it up to a pump with a little photovoltaic panel powering a cutoff timer - so it only pumps when there's enough sunlight to power the panel, and probably enough sun to heat the water too...

Or just build one of these
http://www.builditsolar.com/Experimenta ... uction.htm
I'm told good solar hot water systems can pick up mucho heat from surprisingly little sun.

Thanks for your inputs.

Another cold one today, max of 9. Looking forward to the weekend because we are forecast some barmy 11 degree days.

I can get bubble wrap from work, but I'm not supposed to. So I might just take a sheet here and there and we'll see how many layers I can build up.

As for getting the water up to he roof - the solar powered pump would have to be pretty decent!! It's a good couple of metres away from my roof not to mention at least 1m of head. Anyway, it's a good idea, got me thinking, thanks.

I plan on building a greenhouse frame this weekend using 20mm pressure pipe, achored through the pavement with rebar and attached to the neighbours patio frame. Kind of like a lean to but utilising the bendyness of 20mm pressure pipe to give me a curved roof (I hope).

I haven't even ordered the plastic, so that's a fair way off yet.

Hey Gemmell. Watching your progress re heating with interest. FREEZING in the national capital this week. If I were nitrifying bacteria I wouldn't be working either... We are trying to work out the best way to heat our system down the track so this is all food for thought. BTW - I saw green house plastic on ebay for (supposedly) half price - end of roll or something, a few different sizes available. Not sure how the price stacks up with what's available locally but might be worth a look.

Actually I was thinking you can just power the switch with a tiny solar panel, to turn the mains powered pump on. Should be a pretty cheap way to rig up a solar sensored pump...the pump will only run when the sun is shining.