Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Always great when it all starts to come together .

Since I wasn't sure you used the same media, I didn't bold face the lbs of fish from the K2 media but the total maximum pounds of fish between the grow beds and the K2 media is 121 lbs when fully grown out. I'd suggest that half of that would probably be the most you'd want to start with unless you get more filtration media.

Cheers

Great build Brian.

I may have missed something along the way but how much sunlight do you get on those grow beds? Or will you be providing lighting? Always seems dark in that spot. Or at least the bottom ones won't be getting much light.

Im also wondering, although Im unsure of your stock densities yet, you will probably need to flush nitrates as the 4 small grow beds won't provide enough planting area for nitrate uptake.

Brian, I can't see how you have all those batteries connected in parallel under the cover, but it is worth having a read of this: http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html to make sure you have it right, to give as even as possible (though 6 really is too many in parallel) charge and discharge across all of them.

I agree with Charlie, you will probably need to drain off some water on a daily/weekly basis to keep Nitrates under control.

Why thank you gentlemen. IMHO, the sun in the southwestern USA, in the Summer is too powerful to do any good. It is one of the reasons I built this greenhouse so it receives only morning sun in the Summer. I'll pull down the reed-cloth in a few months. During the Winter what I have seen over the decades on my house, is the GB side of the house receives sun the moment it breaks over the ridge (6AM) until 11:45AM. Noon in New Mexico is called siesta time, generally speaking because the sun is too hot to be under while outside.

Greenhouses in New Mexico (greenhouses which continue to be enjoyable to be inside during most seasons) do not have clear roofs. We refer to this style of structure as a Sun-Room with windows all around and an insulated roof. The Sun-rooms I've been in with west facing windows are also unbearably hot due to the longer wavelength radiation of afternoon heat. These were all considerations when I made my build, but also some practicality, this was the last side of this house I hadn't built onto. I decided to go with trellises over the pond covered in Kiwis and Grapes to keep it cool in the combination fish/greenhouse. I've always intended to build at least two more grow-beds. These are going on the east and south sides of the greenhouse. They will be installed before my trout grow out to adult size. Scotty and Ryan have calculated how many trout to start with, according to the filtration I now have. I'm hearing, "less than a hundred pounds of fish."

On the battery setup, I have researched the layout during the years leading up to building our own axial flux wind turbine. We also did a week long seminar with the famous Dan's from Otherpower in Colorado. I tried to describe the importance of proper wiring in this thread. I guess I didn't do a great job explaining it. This setup is the first I ever did. It has two custom built battery cables for the positive and negative sides. Those two cables reach only four of the six batteries. These custom cables are staggered so on one side it connects four batteries all the was to within one battery of the end. I guess a picture is in order. I had the wiring diagram on my site, but I let my site go.

Over the years these cheap deep cycle batteries have performed flawlessly and well past their normal lifespans.The date tag on the batteries is 05. All cells use the same amount of water consistently and have comparable voltage readings. They are also the same age.
Now the 12 gel cell arrangement for the wind turbine is wired employing a set of electrician's crimpers. I made all the cables the same length, staggered them so if one follows the electricity's path to any battery they'll find an equal distance to and from the power bank.
I did so much yesterday when I probably should be convalescing, I didn't have time to detail the battery layout. I could mention to Newbies that it is fine to mix and match PV panels, but batteries must be the same.

If you have the pump and air intake in a unheated space, don't you think you will have a problem in the winter, when you pump below freezing temp air into your system. ?

So I've read, however if it turns out it is a issue I'll extend the air intake back inside. Mostly I've seen the air pump heat the air. It certainly nice having it outside, nothing but trickling water and gurgling of the MBBR.

I hope it works, you have such a great build.
I understand that a pump is a pain. but I would run the air intake into the warm area, insulate it with those nudels and built a little insulate cover for the pump for winter. It gets nasty cold in our area, in the winter and I do not think that the pump can heat up the air to 50 or so if you have 10 F outside.

I used a pump like yours for horse ice boots, when I did horses as a pro, the warming effect can be neglected, but I had to be very observened if temps were cool, not cold just in the 40s, to prevent freeze burns.

I do not think if you have temps in the freezing area, that you will be able to maintain proper water temp and that you will blow away what you are attempting, earth warms to keep your system warm and the room.
Your night time temperatures are like mine, think about it.

I think it will be fine but temps will be a bit lower in the fish tank and might get too low for the plants - only one way to find out. You could always bring a tube from inside the fish area and connect it to a box out where the pump is so it would stay quiet inside.

The whole idear is about using the warms of the earth acumilated during the year, to make this green house run through the winter.
Using the heat sump of the dirt.
That is what I do with, what I call my winter garden.
I have a 4 feet concrete foundation, insulated on both sides with 2 inch foam, the blocks. It heats up during the winter days without heating to around 70, even if it is outside -20 and some. But at night, even with R30 insulation and double pan windows, I make barely 40. its a large area. 25 by 20 feet, fully insulated roof.
Without heating I make barely 50 degrees, outside in the 20s, during the night. 17.00 hours the sun sets and around 7 it comes up again. That is a lot of time.
If you pump additionally fridged air into the water, which is part of your heat sink, you freeze the place. 14 hours, in the winter without sun.
That's the deal and temps way below freezing.
Brian you have to find a way, to get warm air into his tank, which will keep the heat sink going. Lets not forget the anomaly of water, it takes a huge amount of energy to heat it, but far less to keep it at a certain degree.

What I would do I would find a nice and warm place for my pump, the warmer the better insulate it and see to it that it provides heat for my water, in the summer I would try to cool it down.
But right now that aint the problem coming up, we are heading towards fall and there is 6 month to think about it, the cooling.

Curious minds want to know, what the heck is a horse ice boot?
Seriously, those are all good points and I suppose I best figure something out. It does seem like this is going to be wet Winter. Wet doesn't necessarily mean cold. Climate change is doing unusual weather swings here in New Mexico. During the drought years it was -20F every night for two weeks. Last year I didn't register very many zero nights. Now that the drought has been replaced by constant rains all Summer who knows what this Winter will bring. I shouldn't be surprised with anything. Well, if it gets very bad I can easily bring the air pump back inside; I wired an outdoor receptacle to the output of the inverter.

"If you pump additionally fridged air into the water, which is part of your heat sink, you freeze the place. 14 hours, in the winter without sun." I'm glad you understand what I'm trying to do with my earth-sheltered design Gnoib. Thank you so much for articulating about the heat sinking capabilities of this type of system. It is easy enough to undo the positive effects of all the insulation and heat sinking with one little draft. Thank you for the reminder
One other concern is that cheaply louvered fan housing. I'll need to cover it for Winter. I didn't put a shut off on the thermostatic control. The louvers do not seal when closed. In fact now that I quiting nicotine and had to go to bed early so I wouldn't think about it, here I am up at 4:00 in the morning because instead of sleeping I was thinking about that fan

Any reason I couldn't put my left-over bio-balls in my sump tank? They are contained in bird netting. Also I need to get the shaved aspen media out of my RFF and finish plumbing it. I don't want to lose the beneficial bacteria in there from before I did a 100% water change in the FT. The Shaved aspen is also contained in netting

I have bio balls in my sump, in a laundry bag and tied off so they don't get sucked into my intake. Can't hurt.

Horse ice boot is like a cyro cuff for horses. therapy for injury.

Thanks Coach

Then I got busy,