Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I've been pondering more this question where climates are cold enough for freezing water. The amount of effort, or cost, seems to negate the benefits of growing your own 'stuff' unless you do it in such a volume that you can re-coup some of the cost. I know some do it just because they want to without regard to cost, but how efficient is it really if I have to shut it down for 4 moths every year?

Depends on what you want out of it.

If you have a sun room or an indoor place with enough light, you could do a small system that could run year round. If you are interested in such I can find some member system threads for you to look at.

If doing it outdoors, you might be able to grow trout and make it worth your while. If you design carefully, it might provide enough food value to pay off in say twice the time that it normally takes a year round system. BYAP estimates that their systems can pay off the capital costs in food value in around 2 years. But Ozz doesn't have any climates like yours and we don't have a BYAP distributor here in the USA so figuring out the pay off could be trickier since designing your own system usually has hidden costs of the learning curve.

Here in the UK we have a range of temperatures. There are a number of possibilities for the kinds of fish to use which are more suited to low temperatures. As has been mentioned, trout make a first class fish to use. Providing the fish tanks and grow beds are sheltered then it's quite easy to last a cold winter.

WelshDragon (see the members setups section) has a good setup which he needs being on the harsh North Wales weather. Personally, I have had koi overwintering in pools. In the design I am using for my setup, I will be using deep pools to protect the fish. When I mean deep, I am talking at least 2 meters deep. The depth means that the fish can shelter down at the bottom during the tough times. The depth also means that during hot weather, the fish can find their own favourite spot where the warmer water is at the top. Having a greater depth of water protects in both hot and cold weather.

Of course in winter the bacteria also start slowing down. But this is not an issue as the fish themselves go off the feed and produce less ammonia. Also the colder water gives the fish a higher tolerance for greater ammonia concentrations.

All in all, if you want your Aquaponics system to survive a cold harsh winter; Protect it (greenhouse/polytunnel) and use large water volumes... or rather deep water volumes.

How cold is freezing?

It is often minus overnight here, but the days are always positive, so if you run your system overnight the water doesn't freeze.

Minnesota gets ridiculously cold Gemmell. People there sometimes see snow to the tops of their house roofs!

Minnesota is the kind of place where people actually park in the garage and plug in a heating blanket for their cars so they will start in the morning.

I grew up in Michigan and it usually doesn't get as cold there but we did sometimes see show up to the eves.

Either place will require some sort of heating to keep from freezing pipes during the cold parts of winter.

Well, it certainly does get cold here. The lakes freeze over, capable of sustaining a party of 5000 ( see here for fun http://www.icefishing.org/ )

I wanted to ask about this. I'll be in Washington, it's not incredibly cold in the winter, but it does certainly get and stay below freezing for weeks at a time. I am planning on putting my system inside a greenhouse, but I want to avoid extensive heating if possible (there's other factors that may end up influencing this as well) Anyone else in a climate comparable to the Pacific NW care to chime in on how successful they have been and what helped with their success?

I'm in a cold climate and grow with a greenhouse (USDA zone 5). Heating is very expensive. When the temps go down into the teens at night, I can easily consume $7-8 per night in electricity. That's just enough to keep everything from freezing. If I really wanted to productively grow anything, I could easily triple the heating costs, plus lighting would also be needed.

video of winter greenhouse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_3o9EbtvX8
video of other things we do in the winter : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OPexJe_M1k

hahaha, w4d, thats awesome

Haven't heard from "Ems" for quite a while.... but it might be worth a read through his thread...

viewtopic.php?t=1378&highlight=

"Ems" was in Anckorage, Alaska.... so what worked for him there... should work for everyone else...

Actually, MN and WI don't get a lot of snow, the yearly average for Minneapolis is 62 inches. Some years it's 40 inches others you approach a hundred inches. But it compacts and melts some during winter and a lot of it comes in March so it can melt in a few weeks. Cold is our problem. How cold is cold in Minnesota? While it doesn't happen every year, we can go one to two weeks and never see the plus side of 0F (-18C). If TMan is in southern MN he may actually be zone 5, but most of WI and MN are zone 4 and that means night time lows of -30F (-34C) are possible in winter. From the second half of December through the first half of February having a day where the high hits freezing is uncommon, but hardly unheard of. I remember one January where it hit 60F (15C) for a day. In the summer 80s and 90s are the rule (32C = 90F). We just finished two weeks in the 90s with dew points over 70F (21C). Last Sunday the humidity went away and the temps dropped into the 70s - oh it has been glorious, but it looks like rain again today. Unlike TCLynx in FL, we get breaks from our heat and humidity. We've had a lot of rain this summer.

All that said, the wife of a guy at work uses greenhouse poly and a high tunnel and in January her tunnel gets to 50F (10C) during the day, but at night it is not much warmer than the outside. On the other hand, we go for weeks during the winter without sun (which is usually good, because cloudless nights and days are when it really gets cold) and the tunnel doesn't warm up a lot then.

So for those wondering why anyone lives here, the cold kills. We may have mosquitoes and biting flies, but when I went to school in Oklahoma I yielded the sidewalk once to a monster bug. We have small bugs. And nearly nothing that is poisonous, and then only in the southern half of the state. Lots of lakes and rivers. And really, really good dairy products. And I know I'm kidding myself.

Caribis seems to have pegged it very well. I'm in zone 4 (20 minutes from Minneapolis). I might try for 6 months of the year, but I think cost to heat would make the whole thing cost ineffective unless I was going to really go for it. I'd like to do that, but I don't have the funds to try.

Webdeb- You got a money maker in that personal zamboni for the northern states!

Two winters ago we got over 100 inches of snow. Lots of metal buildings and greenhouses colapsed. So my plan is to have part of my system portable and move it in and out of the garage. Cut to a minimum in the winter and try to keep the garage (which is below our house) +45 degree F minimum for any plants and fish. As soon as spring comes move it all back outside and run the full system spring to fall.

Pleco

Using a 1500 watt deicer in my 300 gallon stock tank raised my electric bill in North Central MI about $ 30/mos through Jan, Feb and Mar.

If you are raising trout or catfish or yellow perch you can have fresh fish during those months, so thats pretty much defraying the heating of the water.

Trout fillets were selling for $14/LB there very recently.