Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It was about 50/50 between towers and beds. I didn't keeps a "scientific" measurement between them to see which produce better. But I did find that the plants in the towers had less problems with disease plus I get a higher density per square foot. Also picking from the towers is far easier....better for my old back!

Nice stats on the strawberries, although unfortunately, they remind me why I just buy them. Last year we got 6kg for under 20 bucks at the local market. made a whole years worth of Jam in one sitting.

of course we didn't get the benefit of eating them from the garden, but with limited space anyway, perhaps its not so much of a loss.

Greetings Rob,
Living near Seattle and just this summer building a greenhouse, enjoyed your entire thread. Building a 700 plus sq. ft. double wall hoop house. Water capacity about 700 gallons. Thank you for yourH2O flow contributions to BYAP.
Our climate is milder in the winters than yours. Fortunately we pay about as much to heat our home as you your GH.
Thank you again,
Oldandfound1

I was wondering if you are allowed to have chickens where you are at- if you are, some greenhouse growers have a hen house attached to their greenhouses so they can capture the bird's body heat during the wintertime. I'm not exactly how they attach it but I'm sure you could find the info on the internet. Also, if you run a light to extend the "daylight" hours, your hens will continue to lay eggs during the winter months. This may be a good solution for your greenhouse heating woes and you will be getting three times the bang for your buck so to speak- winter vegs, fish growth, and winter eggs.

(Angie; I've read your thread with interest.) While the chickens do have body heat, in our northern climate winter (I'm in Minnesota), you would have to have so many to make a real difference I can't say that this will be of any real help. I had 15 chickens in a small space (8x11x7), with a single light bulb (no other heat) for the purposes described and I don't think the chickens contributed to any significant temperature change within the coop. I have heard that they will huddle together to keep themselves warm So much so there is a possibility of suffocating)..... although I didn't see any of that.

PS-Interestingly (at least IMO), the site I get a bunch of info from is http://www.backyardchickens.com. Although I think there are plenty on there who treat chickens as more of pets than an old fashioned barn animal, which may be over the top in some cases... again IMO.

Angie, Unfortunately, I have to agree with Tman. Chickens don't produce enough BTU's to heat a greenhouse. There is so much heat loss through the ceiling that the space they would consume couldn't justify any amount of heat gain.

There use to a large scale egg farm down the road where the chickens were packed in to the buildings. Even in the winter, it was still cold in in the buildings.

On some of the other greenhouse forums, there is chatter about trying to heat with compost. Even with that, it will consume a lot of valuable space, requires more compost than the greenhouse can produce, and there's a high risk of disease and pests.

Other attempts are to use geothermal (heat sinks), but even this can be a problem in a cold zone since there usually isn't enough thermal mass to heat gain ratio during the day to heat the mass to provide enough heat at night. A lot of solar panels would help, but that would be $$$.

Sadly, usually the best way to heat is by using some form of heater. Doesn't take a lot of room and is consistently reliable.

Picked these 3 bad boys out of the greenhouse today. They weigh a pound each! These are the Brandywine heirloom variety.

Wow now they are definately burger tomatoes.

I have been pondering about heating my fish tank in the winter to keep tilapia alive. In addition to insulating the tank and building a cold frame over it I was thinking of making some of these... (solar parabolic water heaters) Maybe this can help you heat your greenhouse this winter also...

If you heat your water warmer than the air temps, you will start to condensate on everything and the humidity will stay near 100%. Mildew and rot will soon follow. Been there, done that.....

But if you configured the parabolic heater as some type of radiant heater with a small pump. Use extra hose to just heat the air in the greenhouse and not the FT.

If you are in a location that gets really cold in winter, then in order to make the heat gain during the day help much, one would need to cover up the greenhouse at night and on stormy days to keep what little heat there is in. It is much harder to automate such covers though.

Even in a hot climate where the greenhouse is hardly needed (and hence greenhouses are rarely more than plastic film and therefore have almost no insulating value) using solar water heaters may have only marginal effectiveness.

I was running some solar pool heaters for a couple winters trying to keep tilapia happy in my central Florida system that was covered by greenhouse film for the winter. On sunny days I was able to heat water in an insulated holding tank up to over 140 F (that's as high as the thermometer would read.) Unfortunately the holding tank was only a medium large freezer chest and 100 gallons of heated water will only do so much. When I would start the system water through the heat exchange coil, it didn't take long to bring the hot water down and I probably only gained a degree of warmth into the system water. I could leave the greenhouse sealed up during the day to gain as much heat as possible but I would loose it all at night and that sort of extreme heat in the day time and then still getting darn cool at night meant my plants were not doing well through winter which normally is a really good veggie growing time in my climate. I finally gave up on tilapia and am doing much better with both plants and fish now that I'm not even bothering with the "greenhouse covering" and growing huge Catfish.

Now I kinda like the parabolic water heater idea. Just keep in mind that metal pipe is often not a good idea for fish system water unless it is food grade stainless steel. If you have to go to some sort of heat exchange system, it means needing a large vessel and coils of some sort of fish safe/food safe pipe that can take the heat. And remember that the solar water heating will be at it's least effective in the winter when the sun angles are lowest and shadows are at their longest.

Sorry for the hijack.
I know I've seen pictures of Rob's greenhouse when the water was too warm and causing the condensation to totally frost the inside. Was it you who ran into a problem with the doors freezing shut?

Hey, insane system you got there, hats off to the computer numerical control *applause* all going to prove that one day engineers will rule the world

Checked out your videos, there were very few and very tiny fish in the tank you showed, were they all that was supporting all those plants?!

Thanks for the detailed response, TC. I couldn't have said it better myself. The problem with living in New England is we don't get a lot of sun during the winter and it gets damn cold. It's not worth the expense to install massive solar heaters to heat a space that has an R value of 2. Most of the commercial greenhouses around here spend a fortune heating and lighting their buildings over the winter....if they can stay in business that long.

abdul, you're right, that video has some tiny fish in there. Right before I shot the video, I had added some seaweed extract - power form. Kill every fish I had. This was a new batch. For the rest of the season while the fish grew, I "converted" the system to pee-ponics. (just don't tell the wife!)

Quick update. This is one of the problems with running consumer electronics in a humid greenhouse. This WiFi repeater (bridge) lasted about 1.5 years until it finally rotted away.