Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm looking at fabricating stainless steel "heat exchagers"

i'll be starting with circular ones that would suit combustion heater flues (like at minnamura).

They could also be used as the in tank exchanger to connect to a solar panel running a secondary fluid (solar panels have copper pipes so can't be run directly off the fish water)

If any one is interested speak up. I'll get pricing together at some stage

Steve

Steve,
Is this how you plan to use the solar panel.
I have access to 3 panels and was thinking I could try the same thing, but then running the fish water through the panel would be a problem - right...

I don't think I could be arsed setting up a heat exchanger, would be easier just to pump the water over the roof in black piping I think.

U gonna have to explain, I honestly can't work out what you meant to type - or u could do a quick edit

What I meant to say was, it sounds like a lot of effort to have another drain tank (possibly) or another pumping system.

But thinking about it further, I guess you could have the heat exchanger in the fish tank and just have a continuous flow through it and the solar panel with just a small pump. But really I don't know - I would like to see some diagrams of what is steve is planning on doing with the solar panel and heat exchanger.

But really I don't want him to have to reply to another post and distract him from adding value to his own system...

thanks for that - with you now

Les

typing is what i do best, FJ

That is exactly how i was going to run it, a very small dedicated pump moving water thoguh the solar panel / stainless coil closed loop.

black pipe on the roof works well for swimming pools. only trouble is that during summer when you don't have it running you might get it hot enoguh to start breaking down the LDPE and get horrible tastes or worse. If you were going to do it that way use HDPE, it has a higher breakdown temp (just below or just above boiling point from memory)

Steve,
This might be a dumb question, but why can't we use copper heat pipes in these systems?

I mean all the drinking water pipes in our houses are copper and we are not crazy... are we...

Fizzy J, have covered this in meatals an crustaecia............but............

No we're not crazy, and it has nothing to do with crazy

Crustaetions and fish are very sensitive to copper, in the order of PPB (parts per billion). I just cover this next bit today or yesterday in a post, but although our houses have copper pipes, it is a one way tip, one time for the water in them, from the mains (concrete or plastic), through maybe 20m of copper pipes, to your taps and then fishtanks.

If you had a heat exchanger set up in your tank, the water would be circulating 24/7 at 3 water changes per hour though the pipes. much more copper would go into solution.

Steve

Dead keen on this Steve, show us your stuff, make it pretty you'll get lots of customers in Aquarium trade.

will do something soon............so much to do, so little time...........the way the weather is shaping up, i may have summer to perfect it

Steve - I am more interested in a transfer design that can lie flat against the bottom or a side of the tank.

i might have given the wrong impression with the title "heat exchanger" I was simply thinking of 1/2 inch s/s tube in a coil format that you could place in the bottom of the tank and have the pipes extending out. If you placed it vertical you would get nice little convection currents. This would be a one piece thing. But there is no reason why i couldn't also make a one piece flat panel for the bottom or side.

I'd probably go the side if those are your two choices VB, the bottom might get a layer of detruis over it

Steve - did you find the time to build a SS heat exchanger? If so, did it work well?

steve you could buy something like this from a serious craftbrewers shop, but i'm not sure you'd get it in the size you want without big $.
i'll also submit that SS has crap thermal properties, have you considered aluminium?

scott, no, never got the chance, but i have the exchanger stacked plate type and the tig welder will get around to it come winter

timmy was there meant to be a link?