Heating Water - Aquaponic Gardening2024-03-29T15:53:44Zhttps://aquaponicgardening.ning.com/forum/topics/heating-water?commentId=4778851%3AComment%3A224543&feed=yes&xn_auth=noFor those who built their own…tag:aquaponicgardening.ning.com,2013-10-12:4778851:Comment:5232572013-10-12T23:25:13.892ZRobert Jhttps://aquaponicgardening.ning.com/profile/RobertAJohnson
<p>For those who built their own tank heater and used the ranco temp controller, what did you find worked best for your temp differential?</p>
<p>For those who built their own tank heater and used the ranco temp controller, what did you find worked best for your temp differential?</p> I use ZipGrow towers and pump…tag:aquaponicgardening.ning.com,2013-10-12:4778851:Comment:5230562013-10-12T22:15:31.791ZBlue Hillerhttps://aquaponicgardening.ning.com/profile/BlueHiller
I use ZipGrow towers and pump vertically through 1"=>1/2"=>1/4" (descending) black poly. The sun hits it and warms it. I get a 5-10F increase during a 12-hour day (low of 68F, high of 80F far). No other heating. My GH is a insulated, passive solar design. 300 gallon tank is sunk 18" deep in stone dust. I use a LGG system to pump air from GH ceiling through 16 yards of stone dust thermal mass. I also have 2x100 gallon stock tanks that are drains for the tower (and feed into tank/sump).<br />
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GH…
I use ZipGrow towers and pump vertically through 1"=>1/2"=>1/4" (descending) black poly. The sun hits it and warms it. I get a 5-10F increase during a 12-hour day (low of 68F, high of 80F far). No other heating. My GH is a insulated, passive solar design. 300 gallon tank is sunk 18" deep in stone dust. I use a LGG system to pump air from GH ceiling through 16 yards of stone dust thermal mass. I also have 2x100 gallon stock tanks that are drains for the tower (and feed into tank/sump).<br />
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GH was designed and built to make it through a Maine winter. Since this will be the first winter, I will update as I see results. I don't have a whole lot of e…tag:aquaponicgardening.ning.com,2013-10-09:4778851:Comment:5229042013-10-09T23:26:35.787ZTCLynxhttps://aquaponicgardening.ning.com/profile/TCLynx
<p>I don't have a whole lot of experience in thermodynamics, but I expect if you are keeping the air temp of the greenhouse at 60 F (I really hope you are in a location where your ground temp isn't going to be sapping all your heat out of that sump tank or that you have insulated that sump tank and can put a good insulated cover over it.)<br></br> Anyway, if the greenhouse air temp is going to be kept above 60 and you expect your sump tank to stay at least 50, then you should probably be heating…</p>
<p>I don't have a whole lot of experience in thermodynamics, but I expect if you are keeping the air temp of the greenhouse at 60 F (I really hope you are in a location where your ground temp isn't going to be sapping all your heat out of that sump tank or that you have insulated that sump tank and can put a good insulated cover over it.)<br/> Anyway, if the greenhouse air temp is going to be kept above 60 and you expect your sump tank to stay at least 50, then you should probably be heating the water to only somewhere between that 50-60 F. If that sump tank is insulated so that you could keep the water in it pretty equal with the water in the greenhouse, then I would say you could heat the water a bit more reasonably to say 65 F which might keep your fish eating a bit more and provide more nutrients for your plants.</p> TCLynx,
My system is enclosed…tag:aquaponicgardening.ning.com,2013-10-09:4778851:Comment:5227402013-10-09T22:36:04.769ZRobert Jhttps://aquaponicgardening.ning.com/profile/RobertAJohnson
<p>TCLynx,</p>
<p>My system is enclosed in a greenhouse which I plan to heat to about 60 degrees (I could do 70 but its cost trade off). I have bass, catfish, walleye, some goldfish and blue gill. Along with fathead minnows (which are dying at an incredible rate since temps started dropping). My sump is outside the greenhouse, partially buried and I expect it to maintain a temp of about 50 degrees through the winter. As you've pointed out grow beds are great heat exchangers. I've built an…</p>
<p>TCLynx,</p>
<p>My system is enclosed in a greenhouse which I plan to heat to about 60 degrees (I could do 70 but its cost trade off). I have bass, catfish, walleye, some goldfish and blue gill. Along with fathead minnows (which are dying at an incredible rate since temps started dropping). My sump is outside the greenhouse, partially buried and I expect it to maintain a temp of about 50 degrees through the winter. As you've pointed out grow beds are great heat exchangers. I've built an electric heater for my sump and now wondering what temp I should raise the water to... I'm horrible with thermodynamics. I'm also planning to add two 4X8 solor water heaters during the optimum dailight hours, which should give me a 20 or so degree increase in water temp eliminating the need for the electric heat for at least 6 hours or so per day. I'm doing a complete water change three times per hour. what temp would you recommend I feed back into the fish tanks?<br/><br/><cite>TCLynx said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://community.theaquaponicsource.com/forum/topics/heating-water?id=4778851%3ATopic%3A11362&page=3#4778851Comment20317"><div><div class="xg_user_generated">I did what I called a solar drain heater on my aquarium system for a while. The Aquarium and grow buckets were in the spare bedroom but the sump tank was just outside the window. I set up a coil of black drinking water pipe so that the drain would send some water through that pipe when the valve was open. That could heat the water quite a bit simply laying out in the sun for part of the day. I had to remember to close the valve in the evening though as it would chill the water quite a lot at night.<br/><br/>The improvement of putting such a thing in a black lined glassed over enclosure would definitely make a big difference, especially if it can be placed such that it gets the best winter sun.<br/><br/>If one were to add thermal mass (black barrels of water or rocks or whatever) into that glassed over black enclosure, one might also use it to warm the air in the greenhouse overnight with the addition of some timer or thermostat controlled vents/fans.</div>
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</blockquote> Joseph, have you had success…tag:aquaponicgardening.ning.com,2013-10-09:4778851:Comment:5227182013-10-09T17:05:35.435ZJeremiah Robinsonhttps://aquaponicgardening.ning.com/profile/JeremiahRobinson
<p>Joseph, have you had success with your mini-hoops over your tanks? Did you use plastic, row cover, both? I'm thinking of doing that, and wondering how much it helps.</p>
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<p>I was also thinking of trying to find a small water-source heat pump, or run a gas line from my house out there. Anyone have experience with this? I've run gas lines indoors before, but not outside or underground.</p>
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<p>Thanks,</p>
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<p>Jeremiah<br></br> <br></br> <cite>Joseph Orlando…</cite></p>
<p>Joseph, have you had success with your mini-hoops over your tanks? Did you use plastic, row cover, both? I'm thinking of doing that, and wondering how much it helps.</p>
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<p>I was also thinking of trying to find a small water-source heat pump, or run a gas line from my house out there. Anyone have experience with this? I've run gas lines indoors before, but not outside or underground.</p>
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<p>Thanks,</p>
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<p>Jeremiah<br/> <br/> <cite>Joseph Orlando said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://community.theaquaponicsource.com/forum/topics/heating-water#4778851Comment11744"><div><div class="xg_user_generated">For those of you using electric heaters. I will be starting with 1200 to 1500 watts to heat a 300 gal tank. However, I ran into an informative article on tank heaters. In the article it says rather than buying a 1500 watt heatter it is better to buy three 500 watt or, even better, five 300 watt heaters. The reasoning is that in case there is a failure in one heater, the others can pick up the slack until it is repaired or replaced. The are two common problems with heaters. One is total failure (no heat), the other is getting stuck open (too much heat). In either case, the other heaters will either put out more heat to compensate or lower their heat to compensate according to the temperature picked up by the controller sensors. I just thought that made a lot of sense.<br/> <br/> JoeJ<br/> <br/> <cite>Sylvia Bernstein said:</cite><blockquote cite="http://www.aquaponicscommunity.com/forum/topics/heating-water#4778851Comment11368"><div>I just use aquarium heaters. 200 watts heats 50ish gallons, so you just go from there. Easy, readily available, but definitely not the best way to heat a large body of water. If I could wave a wand and install whatever I wanted I would install a geo-thermal system in my greenhouse and heat the water using heated water pumped in from the earth...but that is pretty pricey!</div>
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</blockquote> hey all, As an avid Ice Fish…tag:aquaponicgardening.ning.com,2012-04-05:4778851:Comment:3162862012-04-05T21:43:08.277ZCindy A Dageshttps://aquaponicgardening.ning.com/profile/CindyADages
<p>hey all, As an avid Ice Fisherman when I lived in Ohio, I know that Perch and Walleye can stand temps down around 36 ish. Winter ice fishing in Lake Erie is mostly for walley, and a few perch. Water depth around the Lake Erie Islands is about 32 feet. Fishing depth for those fish is usually around 25-30 feet with a few hugging the bottom. Perch are usually suspended and caught at shallower depths. The Moral? I am gonna try to find someone with small perch and/or walleye to stock with…</p>
<p>hey all, As an avid Ice Fisherman when I lived in Ohio, I know that Perch and Walleye can stand temps down around 36 ish. Winter ice fishing in Lake Erie is mostly for walley, and a few perch. Water depth around the Lake Erie Islands is about 32 feet. Fishing depth for those fish is usually around 25-30 feet with a few hugging the bottom. Perch are usually suspended and caught at shallower depths. The Moral? I am gonna try to find someone with small perch and/or walleye to stock with when I get to that point. In the summer, perch are the mainstay for fisherman while walleye head for the deeper parts of the lake up to the east. (60' +) The perch just head for the bottom. Plan is in place. (sigh, if only the state will see it the same way as I do)</p>
<p> </p> Thanks for your detailed repl…tag:aquaponicgardening.ning.com,2012-01-22:4778851:Comment:2819052012-01-22T21:56:37.683Zaaron gallagherhttps://aquaponicgardening.ning.com/profile/aarongallagher
<p>Thanks for your detailed reply. I like the idea of the cover over the troughs.</p>
<p>Thanks for your detailed reply. I like the idea of the cover over the troughs.</p> Aaron, I am still in test mod…tag:aquaponicgardening.ning.com,2012-01-21:4778851:Comment:2810992012-01-21T03:45:32.692ZJoe Bifanohttps://aquaponicgardening.ning.com/profile/JoeBifano
<p>Aaron, I am still in test mode. Yes I have the 600 feet installed and I have the tank below ground so I am able to do nothing and keep the tank temp at 45 degrees. I have tested it to see what it would do but have not recorded any real data yet. I have it on a variable speed taco pump and have seen it go on for about 10 minutes and it raised it 1 degree so far but becasue I do not want to pay to heat the tank with propane I am not willing to raise the temperature up yet. I have no fish in…</p>
<p>Aaron, I am still in test mode. Yes I have the 600 feet installed and I have the tank below ground so I am able to do nothing and keep the tank temp at 45 degrees. I have tested it to see what it would do but have not recorded any real data yet. I have it on a variable speed taco pump and have seen it go on for about 10 minutes and it raised it 1 degree so far but becasue I do not want to pay to heat the tank with propane I am not willing to raise the temperature up yet. I have no fish in the tank so I am not quit ready yet.SO as the sun has warmed things I have it all about 50 degrees along with using some propane.</p>
<p>I am testing a wood stove heat exchanger and 500 gallon water storage tank. That has been tested using a wood stove and a pump on an open system and I have raised the temperature on about 200 gallons over night about 50 degrees. Soon I will be adding the tank to full and testing it again. Once I can get the tank to above 130 degrees I will be adding a heat exchanger to the closed system with a normally open zone valve from the storage tank and a normally closed zone valve from the propane heater so I use the storage tank first. Then I will start raising the temperatures up to 60 then on to 65 slowly so I do not use any propane. I have a lot of free wood.</p>
<p>I live in Colorado and right now I have been using the propane to just keep things in the greenhouse from freezing. I have 2 1200 gallon fish tanks and 4 750 gallon troughs all connected with PEX along with a Utility room that is 12x32. I have only used about $200 to keep these all about 50 degrees since September. So I spent about $40 per month just to keep things from freezing and making sure they stay at 50 degrees all night long. We have had some real cold nights and so far the PEX has not broke. I do know that one time I had a frozen PEX pipe but because the pressure on these pipes are about 20 psi I have had no problems. I am not heating the greenhouse at all just the waters.</p>
<p>I also built a hoop over the troughs with an R-15 aluminum cover. I am testing this right now and seeing about a 5 degree difference in the temperature. Tonight I added a bathroom small ceramic heater in it and see that it has added another 10 degrees. With that info I am looking at adding some baseboard hot water heaters in the trough area. I will use the hot water again from the storage tank and see what I can get next. I am hoping to get it too about 60 degrees so cold crops will do really good. The I put down the cover at night and raise it up at day. This will allow me to not have to heat the whole greenhouse and just the covered areas. I should save a lot.</p> Joe did you ever get that 600…tag:aquaponicgardening.ning.com,2012-01-21:4778851:Comment:2811572012-01-21T03:11:13.374Zaaron gallagherhttps://aquaponicgardening.ning.com/profile/aarongallagher
<p>Joe did you ever get that 600' of PEX into your system? Any updates on your heating/cost predictions?</p>
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<p>Joe did you ever get that 600' of PEX into your system? Any updates on your heating/cost predictions?</p>
<p></p> I never actually did it mysel…tag:aquaponicgardening.ning.com,2011-11-29:4778851:Comment:2576062011-11-29T00:41:38.070ZTCLynxhttps://aquaponicgardening.ning.com/profile/TCLynx
<p>I never actually did it myself. I did read thought the thread as some one in OZ tried to keep an AP system warm with coils of tubing buried in a compost pile. He eventually decided it wasn't worth all the extra effort with a compost pile that was probably less than 6 feet by 6 feet by 6 feet. Now if you had a really big pile, it might be enough in South Florida. See the difference between heating domestic hot water and heating aquaponic water is that the aquaponic water being circulated…</p>
<p>I never actually did it myself. I did read thought the thread as some one in OZ tried to keep an AP system warm with coils of tubing buried in a compost pile. He eventually decided it wasn't worth all the extra effort with a compost pile that was probably less than 6 feet by 6 feet by 6 feet. Now if you had a really big pile, it might be enough in South Florida. See the difference between heating domestic hot water and heating aquaponic water is that the aquaponic water being circulated through the system will loose heat (especially in flood and drain beds) during cold times while domestic hot water usually sits in an insulated tank until it gets used the one time.</p>
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<p>Now here in FL, I know people who will keep tilapia alive during the cold spells by simply letting water run to waste as they top up with well water since well water here comes out of the ground warm enough to keep the fish alive. I don't like that since it is such a waste of water and my well water is too hard and keeps my pH too high but some people do it.</p>