A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Greenhouse & Fish House Build thread

Hello all,

Instead of putting all my photos in my intro thread, I decided to create a build thread for those who wish to "Go Big or Go Home" hehehe.. I am going to photo document as much as possible and give clear details to what we are doing and why. Since this is our first time, I am sure there will be mistakes and changes along the way. As the process continues, if anyone here has any "Improvement Ideas" or a better way of doing something you see we are about to do, please, please speak up and share!

I will start adding photos, some of which have already been posted, but should be part of this thread..

Take care, have a great Holiday Season!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Brent Dougherty on December 12, 2014 at 4:04pm

Permalink Reply by John Pink on December 15, 2014 at 8:42am

If you are keeping tilapia ,good idea to install gas water heater for reliability .I like the insulation ,same. For me in the workshop just installed insulation boards

makes all the difference .How do you plan to heat the building?

Permalink Reply by Brent Dougherty on December 15, 2014 at 8:57am

We have a 200,000 BTU propane heater, but want to avoid using it as much as possible. The fish house will have a radiant barrier foil over the fiber glass insulation locking all heat in the fish house. That heat will be pumped over to the greenhouse. We are also going to use 4 or 5 black 55 gallon barrels for thermal mass heating filled with hot water.. We have a big wood burning stove in the fish house for heat and will build a rocket stove if necessary... water will be heated through stainless steel tube wrapped around stove..

Permalink Reply by Brent Dougherty on December 15, 2014 at 9:48am

Continuing with insulating the fish house & a photo showing size and location of fish house to greenhouse.. Electrician is coming today to start wiring project of both buildings..

Permalink Reply by Brent Dougherty on December 15, 2014 at 9:52am

Permalink Reply by Jeff S on December 25, 2014 at 8:42pm

I ran the exhaust stack from my wood burner along the top of my GH to allow all that heat that's going up the stack to dissipate inside the GH on it's way out. When I asked my local HVAC contractors about this type of system they looked puzzled but my 125 year old house had that type of system throughout back when it was built. I have temperature sensing fans in the ceiling to blow the warm air down. Works great in my GH.

Permalink Reply by John Pink on December 26, 2014 at 3:25am

I like the build .well I have a small greenhouse in comparison .Thinking about it wish I had made the building out of wood -sides insulated to a height of three feet sides and roof made out of Perspex to give good insulation that would have been better than a greenhouse for aquaponics .We now have a cold snap minus 3 it's surprizing how the T5 grow lights make a difference to heating ,when about 5 degrees the heat from the lights keep the greenhouse about ten degrees which is good simply that it makes the gas heater redundant ,so saving gas ,insulation is every thing in aquaponics ,both to insulate grow beds and fish tank saves pounds .Happy new year to you .

Permalink Reply by Brent Dougherty on January 5, 2015 at 10:01am

Thanks for the input guys.. I have been busy here are some photos of what we have been doing to the fish house..

Permalink Reply by Brent Dougherty on January 5, 2015 at 10:03am

Permalink Reply by Brent Dougherty on January 5, 2015 at 10:04am

Permalink Reply by Brent Dougherty on January 5, 2015 at 10:06am

The other day, while still filling air gaps etc, we had it up to 80F inside! I am guessing when we are done, we will achieve 90F.

Brent Dougherty said:

Permalink Reply by Ian Cameron on January 5, 2015 at 12:21pm

Hi Brent, is that a pellet stove you have as well? What is your inside wall covering?