Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Like this

think its similar yes but from memory its a bit bigger... I was originally thinking it was a caravan hot water heater, but it might even be a gas pool heater ...

So how badly copper filled are they F&F?
How easy do you think it would be to replace the copper with stainless pipe in one?
Also do you think hooking it up for a week or two to test it out, would leach too much copper into the system?

All the pipe work in them is copper
seeing the engenering that went into your system i would say hubby would be able to change the coils
As far as leaching as long as you dont have crustations in the system 2 weeks probley wont hert

Damn
Excellent
That ones the kicker... I knew how sensitive fish were to copper, but hadnt considered that the yabbies might be much more so... Maybe a couple of days tops for testing might be better

I think you will be dissapointed its ok to heat but its a lot harder to keep it in the system
Look at this way the surface area of the heater is say 100 square inches thats for heating
Now work out the total square inches of all your ibc/s and pipework thats giving a cooling effect [many thousands of sq in cooling ]

Yeah realise its not going to be dramatic... but because we are switching off all the GBs at night ATM, and just running the FTs with airstones, we are thinking it would help with the overnight drop in temp. Also, to connect it all up, we would have to modify the sump pipework so we could cycle with it instead of just turning it off... so it would help with DO too hopefully

BUT, if it does work, have to admit that im curious as to how the fish would handle the temp change once the system is brought on-line each morning, and starts running the warmed water out of the FTs into the GBs, and the cold water starts dumping into the FTs...

But then, its just curiosity thats making us try out the heating idea anyway... If heating DOESNT work this year we could always try running some trout next winter

Yeah, might shock your fish more by turning the system on in the morning with a sudden temperature shock, rather than running it over night and having a gradual temperature change..

This is why I am such a fan of growing what suits your water temps, rather than trying to adjust water temps to suit.

Have you considered heating the air in the greenhouse instead of the water? I saw this guy use a wood burning stove outside and circulate water through pipes into the greenhouse and into old radiators with fans blowing on them. Kept the temp in the greenhouse above 60 F. all night. That should keep water temps up too.
Just a thought.

Brilliant Idea - thanks for your suggestion ralath... OK, Ive got to process that one for a while...

To be honest, when we were first designing the system... and right up till just before we laid the GB pipework, we had planned to run pipes just under the surface up and down the GH - like underfloor heating. This was going to be connected to some sort of wood stove (hadnt quite decided what we were going to use at that stage)... originally we were looking for an old aga stove with a water jacket (or run coiled stainless through the flue) and then started looking at earth ovens as they can store heat for days if designed properly... and we were going to grab a hot water pump and cycle it through the GH...

Then we then looked at sitting all the GBs on pallets with the heat pipes running through inside the actual pallet with black plastic around the GBs to trap in the heat while protecting the IBCs... but were worried about termites

So originally we were going to try something similar, but LOVE the idea of the radiators... we have actually been talking pretty heavily about GH heating to stop that big temp swing anyway, so that idea would work really well I reckon!

I know the con's of what we are doing... but this is our test system ... figure (especially while we are so lightly stocked) that we might as well test the boundaries a little while we can

I would love to find something that is economical and that works in a (trial) commercial setting... especially if that means year round growth rates in fish - as well as out of season veg!

:shock/
I thought you were past that stage already!

... nah, reckon this will ALWAYS be the test system in some form or another....

even once we had set up a bigger 'commercial' system, weve discussed the fact that we would still need somewhere to trial new varieties and species, treatments, propagation methods, etc ...

You always need a 'bigger' system

Have you thought about compost heating netab? Those growing power people in the states are using it, and I think even if you have the pile outside the GH but run one of the water pipes through it it ought to really help.

Growing Power piles compost against the outside of the walls on their greenhouses, up to a height of 1 - 1.5m, as well as in the inside corners of the greenhouse. They do it with tractors and a LOT of volunteer work. Their composting system is industrial in scale.

I don't think that's feasible for most AP greenhouses, but more power to those who can manage it!

I'm sure that way is a great way to do it, it certainly sounds it, but shouldn't even a couple of 200 liter blue barrels make a difference too?

Dunno. I think someone will need to do the math.