Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

But see the problem I think I had last year is that I turned it off overnight, and because of that the rocks were wet and the nights were cold and the rocks actually froze, which meant that the bacteria either stopped working or died. Either that or it was just too cold for them to be doing their job. So what I want to stop is the growbeds themselves from freezing. I thought maybe a layer of carpet over the top? Anyone done that? That'd be benifital for other reasons - worms come right to the top, stops evaporation etc etc


Yep, I'll post it up this arvo.


So you're going against conventional wisdom which is to turn off pumping overnight to conserve heat? So I just continually pump so that I lose plenty of heat but it never gets below zero... I spose if I had everything pretty well insulated anyway (ala carpet and old insulation around everything) then I don't stand to loose too much heat... I like the idea. But why thermally couple to the slab? Wouldn't that mean I loose heat quicker? Or are you thinking it'll help temperature swings by just adding thermal mass?

As for running water not freezing - I've posted these before:




That's running water, frozen solid.

Yeah I see your point Gemmel... and F&F's point.... continuing to pump and flow the water would/should keep things from freezing...

But as you've found... that depends on whether the flow rate is high/fast enough to prevent freezing....

The problem with pumping through the growbeds overnight is the temperature loss that occurs by doing so... still with trout, that might not be of such concern...

JAI, bury the irrigation grid more, might take longer to freeze.

My reply is working on trout for that you need cool

I had 40L of still water in a buried sump that didn`t freeze even with an overnight temp of -12C. It was open to the air except for a weedbarrier fabric over the top to prevent stuff falling into it.
The standing water in the above ground hose from the sub pump in the sump froze solid even though it was covered with snow. Thermal mass makes all the difference

Yeh, 12 degrees is the ideal temp for trout. But in winter down here the max temps are 12 degrees, minimums around 0. My water temps were 6 to 8 last year and I had lots of ammonia. So I don't necissarily want it to be as cold as it can be.

Anyway, here is the pic of the B* solar collector. Might also put it in another thread so those that don't read my thread can check it out.

So you are the nuisance kicking up all the dust that we need to wear a mask for!!!

Arrrgh! same pic in multiple threads!!! I was wondering where my reply had gone, I almost made it again!!!! Apparently I'm not quite with it today

Hehe, I even said:

I know, but I always look at the pictures first then decide if I should read... saves me from half the semantics discussions.

A picture's worth a thousand posts?

Give him a break.........It's Friday

despite being a Friday, it was more a comment on my cogitative skills, rather than picking on Gemmel. Still buy one, I'm interested.
Mate of mine has a little pool like in the pic, gonna try and convince him :-)

I think folks normally turn off pumping to conserve heat to warmer-loving fish like barra or tilapia. Trout should be ok...

It would be nice to have a location where the high summer sun will not penetrate, but the low winter sun strikes full-on. Any chance of that?

Extra thermal mass (especially with buried systems) makes a huge diff in daily fluctuations, but also with seasonal ones as the earth a meter or so down tends to fluctuate just a couple degrees from yearly average temperature.

That 10 to 14 goldfish wont eat thats by the book was reading an american site there goldfish pond freezes over every year when melts the goldies are still there