Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am contemplating my new system for a high desert climate with daily temperature variances of as much as 50 degrees from hi to lo. What would happen if I buried my FT in the ground, using it for insulation both from the cold and heat? Or, would I be asking for trouble? What if I used a bathtub wrapped in reflectix and buried it? I have read the threads about bathtubs and chipped porcelain and the heavy metals, what if I used the porcelain repair goop they sell, and let it cure well before filling? Wanting to be as well informed as possible before attempting a system design. Thanks

Hi Graygal56, welcome to the forum

As long as the porcelin repair goop is safe you'd probably be OK. Someone else may know better.

If you've got really large variations in heat I think having more volume in the tank might be better. The grow beds act like heat exchangers and with a small reservoir you'd still get quite a bit of temperature fluctuation. Having the ground in contact with the tank would probably help stabilize the temperature so I don't think I'd wrap the tank in insulation in this case.

Cheers

I live in Phoenix, AZ so it can get to up to ~115 F / 46 C. Currently I'm working on building an indoor system. Once I have the space I'm going to move it outdoors. If the heat becomes an issue when I do I'm going to shade the crap out of it and then add LED grow lights which don't put out a lot of heat.

If that's still not sufficient I saw someone had converted an old window AC unit into a water cooling system. Maybe even make some kind of evaporation system.

Since we're in the city during the summer it doesn't get cold but in the fall to spring it can drop pretty cold so I'd have heat somewhere, probably heating the sump as that water will get pumped from the sump back into the FT / growing areas.

Obviously this is all just in my head, we'll see how it pans out IRL .

We had temps like that in the town I had my system set up in and I never had any issues with the heat over the years. Use shade cloth and it will be fine.

Thank you all for your responses! I appreciate the help.