Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Winter has been nasty this year temperature wise and so I thought I'd go check the stream down back's temperature. 56!

Isn't this so cold fish and bacteria would hardly eat/work - provide nutrients...

Anyways, did some major theorising on the winter slowdown after autumn and the spring flush and how the temps drop and bacteria fish and other wildlife sit idle as all of autumns organic harvest makes it's way in the ground and waterways. Then the temperature rises in Spring and boom - LIFE.

Ever seen a Spring boil of fish in an estuary? so much life!

Anyways. So I'm sitting by the stream contemplating this unusually cold season, life, the universe, and everything, and how I could somehow keep my water warmer in cold months without adding gadgets that drain power.

I got a small pump (200 lph) and a black piece of plywood then got a bucket of rainwater. BRRRRRRRR cold! I coiled 6 mm tube in a big coil sat it on the ply using black gaffer one end from the bucket to the pump other end to the coil and back into the bucket.

Results. Bucket of water at
12:00. Water 59 (15) degrees. External temp. 54 (12.22) degrees.
18:00. Water 61 degrees (16.11) External Temp 52 (11.11) degrees.

This concludes the experiment.

In winter months a portion of your water can be utilised for heating your water. This would need to run only during the day you'd need to turn it on and off I think or night would use it to cool? It could be set up as a coil on a board inside a lower double skinned panel. You'd then utilise the heat trapped in there as well without stealing any sun from your plants nor a massive draw from your pump.

There you go AA, you have done my experiment for me. I bought 30 metres of that tube, or might ever be thinner, to make a series of coils to do a similar test. Will still have to do it though, because I am going to have a much bigger collector, hotter daytime temperatures but also a much bigger water source in my test. I'm also thinking of trying to get my parents solar pool heater, which needs a bit of repair but is not used at all. That would work fantasticly I'm sure - it is huge.

AA this has been discussed in great depth. At the moment peoples main concern is about possible leaching of the black poly tube (possibly made worse due to UV and heat)

By the way, isn't aren't you on the metric system and degrees C over there? Or are you old school, can't see your age.

Nice putting the conversions in too, thanks.

Haha, I got this thermometer and I read form left to right - you see where this is heading. ROFL!

Ah ok. I wondered at heat myself.

Did any verdicts come in on this?

Some people are more concerned than others. I think I was the main one raising concerns. My intention is to keep the solar heated water seperate and have it running throught some sort of stainless steel device in the tank for heat transfer - e.g stainless tubing. Problem is that that stuff cannot be worked on at home and is as expensive as shit to have somebody do for you.

I think one of the verdicts was to try and control heat with greenhouse (and I personally will probably try passive solar in greenhouse) before deciding whether solar is necessary.

I reakon once your greenhouse is all finished you could use black poly to great effect in heating, both through water and air heating AA... But I was upset at the performance of my black poly water heating when used in an open environment...

Check the thread Steve mentioned, if you haven't already.

I KNEW it felt colder than normal

Try a little compost heating - seems to be working for me to a certain degree

2 degrees here last night, and my tank is sitting at 8 degrees at the moment.... Silver perch don't look too happy,

You looked at putting a heater in?

You'll be the first to see my cheapo poly pipe solar when it's done Joel!

For next Winter...

The Kokopu love this weather. They hit worms and critters I feed them hard. Threw a big earthworm in two of them had an end each did the spaghetti trick like two very angry lovers sharing a meal lol.

EB, i'm fairly sure than extended temps of 7C is what finnished off my silvers

Steve, time to mow your lawn and make a compost heater for your system!