Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Right...
what we need to do is scan the various threads which have been posted in the past regarding heating your system water and pluck out the useful info...

To start with here are the first few I have located so far:
* Black Polly pipe for heating water
* solar heating
* Mulch as a heat source
* Heaters.. which are best liked
* Solar Water Pump?
* DIY heat pump for AP water?
* Solar heating water

Not all of them are strictly about heating water, but there could be some usefull info in there
See any more out there, add them here, or just add ideas and approaches to both heat water and conserve heat in your system

Roskar, you out there mate? I would like to know how youe custom made heated tank has performed since October last year when pics of it in construction were posted... Anybody know how that worked?

I don't think it would have worded all that well AM. It was housed below the fibreglass so didn't have any direct contact with the water. NJH was always saying that heat exchangers are quite inefficient. Although I could never understand a word the bloke said - he seemed to be backing it up with physics.

I am still keen though to try a heat exchanger made from stainless steel tubing which will be placed in my sump. I should get a quote - I think it is likley to be quite expensive though. To be effective it would have to be quite long and would therefore need lots of bends or u joints.

How would a 50 litre beer keg in the glass house with water flowing in an out placed directly over the nat gas glass house heater go

Would probably go okay F&F - but wouldn't it use a fair bit of gas. I'm keen to try and harvest solar energy if possible.

Can you remind me what the name is of the old dispensers that have a heap of stainless tube inside them that can be salvaged. Thanks.

i think this was in a solar collector thread somewhere here, but was the metal pipe grid on the back of fridges stainless steel?

the old dispensers are temprite or old post mix m/cs
as for water heating was thinking of putting barrel high in glass house roof
nat gas is still the cheapest and cleanest form of heating on the market

I wonder how much of an efficiency difference it would make if you made a big effort to insulate and seal your greenhouse? Even if the heat exchanger wasn't hugely effective at getting the heat from the hot water tank into the flow lines would it matter if the heat source was in the green house?

Alternatively if the hot water tank is ultra insulated then even if the heat exchanger was inefficient then the system should still work efficiently.

Shouldn't it?

All fridge coils are steel or ally

Thanks F & F



Not sure what you mean - is this with or without gas heating?

Both will use gas at night and sun day time dosent matter much heater has a thermostat

havent been reading much of the threads about heating but has anyone thought of somehow using the house hot water service and making some sort of hydronic heating setup?

yes that idea has been hit on general consenses it would muck up your hot water service and unless its gas would be to expencive and its normaly to far to your aqua set up

ok because im building a new hothouse and it just happens to next to my gas hotwater service lol

I was fairly sure that the coils at the back of the fridges were copper?