Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello, I just moved into my new place in Jacksonville, Florida, and ready to start setting up a decent sized AP setup. What's unique about my house is that I have a moat around the front. The house is supplied by a deep well, and somehow, the cold water from the well is piped through a portion of the AC system to help with cooling. This water is then discharged into the moat, and feeds the wetland area adjacent to my property.

I don't want to use the moat as part of the system, but was thinking I could use the discharge as part of a liquid to liquid cooling system between the fish tank and the plants. Basically, have the system water flow through an intercooler/radiator that is submerged in an insulated tank fed by the discharge water, and then have it flow back out to the moat. Then between the plant discharge and fish tank, use a solar heated method to warm the water back up. Everything I've been reading suggests tilapia (which I would like to grow to harvest because I love tilapia) thrive better in warmer water, but plants like the cooler water. Is this something that would be beneficial and worth the trouble doing? It actually wouldn't be much trouble, as I'm a welder/fabricator by trade and I'm a NCCER certified pipe fitter with plenty of PVC running experience.

The second thing is that my moat has loads of minnows in it. I've been contemplating how to make my system legitimately sustainable without having to rely on purchasing commercial fish food. I know I'm not going to be able to completely get around it at first, and it's not a cost issue. It's more of a "prepper" concern. If there is a disaster and shipping is unavailable for whatever reason, and I can't buy fish food, it would basically shut down the whole system when I run out. I only thought about feeding with minnows today, so haven't had too much time to look through everything, (I'm getting horrible data service where I'm at and lucky to even get registered on this forum, until I get internet service connected at my house). Some concerns I have with feeding with fish from the moat is that while the water is clean discharge from the well, there is some sitting water here and there depending on the water level, and I don't know if I should be concerned with harmful biologics contaminating the AP system when I put minnows from the moat into it. If that ends up not being too much of a concern, then I'd be interested in growing feed plants in the moat as well, and increase the propagation of the minnows.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. I would have put these questions in the respective subforums, but I feel like since I don't have a system currently up and running, I'd have to keep explaining the particular aspect of the moat and it would seem like it would end up being redundant.

Hi tBFA, welcome to the forum.

Have a look around the forum at the various threads that talk about ponds and pools.
There are a few - these are generally not run as an AP but simply use the water as required.

your question seems to focus more on cooling and heating..
to be honest I doubt you need to do both - plants like warm water.
So you would just focus on what you actually need to do.

IMO cooling would be easy using poly pipe (irrigation pipe) or similar.
Heating is a bit harder...however again there are threads that talk about using solar black poly-pipe heating.
Bit short on time at the moment to search through and dig them up.


A few pictures would be good to see what you are dealing with...
(posting instructions here... viewforum.php?f=4)

I appreciate it! I'll start a new thread to add pics.

no need for new thread, just keep adding here as it keeps the story together.
A lot of members do read new posts (you will be surprised how many) and will comment if they feel they can contribute.

oops too late -> gone here viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30005

Welcome to the forum. Sounds like a heat pump for cooling but I hadn't heard of one that discharges water like that.
Check this out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heat_pump geothermal heat pumps are costly to install and save money in heating and cooling. You may have found a gold mine there TheBFA.
Brian

You might want to take a look at Florida fish and wildlife division. Pretty sure tilapia is illegal to be raised in Florida due to them being able to survive in the wild and already being an invasive species down there... I know I bought my tilapia from Tampa aquaculture and I recall their website saying they cannot ship to anyplace in Florida. Might be able to cast net some in the wild to start but might not be legal to aquaculture at all.. might change your system plans if that is the case.

Otherwise I think F&F (food&fish / fish&food...can't remember which comes first) has an example of basically what you are saying (in reverse, using heater to warm water and plumbed through his beds to warm media) same concept should work for cooling.

Thanks for the heads up rininger. I'll check on that. It's not the end of the world if I can't use tilapia, especially if it can just be caught wild here.

I took a look and blue and nile tilapia don't require a permit in my region as long as I acquire them from within the state. I'd need a permit to get them from outside of the state. Wami and Mozambique tilapia require a permit, and all other tilapia species are prohibited.

While looking this up, I noticed crawfish were covered under this same topic, and haven't considered using them. But they are REALLY popular in this area, and I bet I could sell every last one no matter how much I can produce. I might have to start looking into that.