Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Unfortunatley we don't have the space for a PSG in our backyard(IBC system under construction).

We do get the suitable weather though...

Its the 3rd day without direct sunshine and temps between -9 to -14. We got ~25cm of snow, which helps a lot with insluating.

The house is on the limit, the week points of the construction are showing now clearly. Ice inside on the door, window, and even on the policarbonate glazing.

I have put some adition a insulation on the door and the window.



And burried the front of the building with snow. In a short time the ice on the inide of the glazing started to melt.





System water is down to 5,25 C, air is 5,00 C
I'm still not heating!

More bad weather is ahead, at least 3 days with no sun, than a few days of partialy cloudy. But if the clouds go away we are expecting nightly lows of -22-25!!!

Long time not posted any measurements, here is one very important.

System temp 5,25 C
ph: 6 - little on the low side but no problem.
amm: 0 - feeding was going normal till yesterday, since system temp dropped below 6, I decided to feed half ammount.
no2: 0 - no problem
no3: 50+ - no problem, plants dont realy grow at 5C

Bottom line, this is the time where my overfiltered setup pays off. Bacteria can still handle it even at temps as low as 5,25C!

if the pH is 6 does your test go lower..?

If not have you any form of buffer in the system so that it does not crash..?

Have you looked at any other form of heating for the greenhouse..

Psst how goes the cold.. Hope you keep you and your family safe..

Juergen

Today morning I turned the heating on after the system has lost most of the thermal storage, and weather is not getting any better.

I had 3 days, and 4 nights under -10C without sunshine. The system water temp right now is 4,5C, inside air is 3,75.

The "heating" is a 1KW electric water heater, can raise, only 1C per day. Its more like a slower of cooling down then a heater.

pH is buffered, from the beginnings.

The forcast says we arek expecting an other 6-7 days unde -10C with the -22-25 minimums. But who cares if the sun shines! Wish me sunshine!

I wish you sunshine !!!

You can have some of My sunshine..

Have you thought of any other methods of heating..
Actually that element in Water would work nice.. heat up the water in a few barrels, and let that radiate heat..

- Have you thought of making a solar heater..
Some of the results I have seen are pretty good.. Air warmed up to 200deg F just from the sun..
Yeah I know I said Sun..

- Have you though of Double lining the window's at all..?

Juergen

Tough weather zsazsa. Good way to find out what to improve though

The sun is shining!
The electrick heating is off.

Its been an other two sad days with hardly any sun. System temp fell back to 5,5C while the outside average temp stayed arround -10C.

Today morning finally its seems like we get some sun, I'm in a good mood! My facebook fanpage boomed to over 3000 fans, quite much of the fans follow my morning and afternoon temp reports.

No news comming form the side of the university studies, I think/hope they are bussy finding funding. Meanwile I'm not boored at all, writing the hungarian aquaponics how to filling my days. I havent typed so much since I have graduated...

I'm amazed amabout the am, no2, no3, and ph. data. It shows that the bacteria are working fine even in temps as low as 5,5C. The achilles corner of the system right now are the plants. They dont really grow enough to handle the appetite of the fish.

Wanna come to a tour with me?

This is the report that one of the Hunarian TV channel (www.tv2.hu) made with me, on febr. 2nd.
No english subs, but I work on that, gice me some time.





This one is a little video that I made from the outtakes that they kindly offered for me! Thx for tham!





Enjoy!

A very pleasant TV report, even though I don't know Hungarian it seemed very relaxed and a nice show. The fish feeding footage underwater is way cool.

They did a good job of making the camera work interesting. That reporter was hungry . I couldn't tell what he was saying but he definitely enjoyed the eating portion of the video.