Cold Weather Aquaponics

Damn Jere, an iceburg!  Where do you live, Greenland?

Nice one Phil!  I'm from Wisconsin, actually.  Though the Great Lakes did all freeze this winter and had some pretty epic iceburgs.

hi

good to see cold weather greenhouse start up

it can be difficult to raise tropical's in the snow

Jeremiah,

Congratulations on the birth of your daughter! Your life is changed forever.

Best wishes to your wife also.

I have a question about your experience with freezer fish tanks. I know this is summer time but I am thinking ahead. What kind of water temperature can someone expect to be able to maintain if the outside temp. is below freezing.

Thanks

If anyone here is in Maryland, I just created a group Maryland Aquaponics for open discussion about the difficulties specific to our area. Please join me and lets talk aquaponics.

Hi Richard,

I'm not sure why my earlier comment never stuck here, but I'll add one now since I don't see it.

You can maintain whatever water temperature you want.  I maintain 50 degF when it's -27 outside.  Nearly all my heat loss occurs in the grow beds rather than the fish tanks, so your temperature limits are set by those.

I'm in the process of putting my IBC sump in the ground. Anyone have suggestions about the best way to insulate it? I'm going for keeping it warm in the winter. I often wonder why folks with overheating water problems don't put their sumps in the ground without insulation to cool the water.

HI Jeff, my thought is that you should glue 2" foam board to the IBC, and then spray Great Stuff in the corners where the foam doesn't touch.

Don't forget to put the foam board on the bottom between the IBC and its pallet.

Also I am going to look for an insulation contractor that installs spray insulation and forget the board just have the sides sprayed .. except use the board on the bottom

Hey Phil, you can spray your own. Most lumberyards have kits.  Just make sure to wear a tyvek suit and quality mask :)

Thanks Josh!

Jeremiah, That was my first thought. Just wanted to ask for any input just in case. I'm putting 2" foamboard on the bottom and all around the cage. Spray foam has a way of pushing it's way wherever it wants so I'd be afraid to use it unless I had water in the tank. I do need to figure a way to make it all waterproof so when the water table rises it won't cause a problem.

Jeff, you probably didn't intend to, but you just blew my mind.

First the issue you asked about: yes, spray foam would push back against the walls of your IBC if it was empty. There's no reason not to fill it first though, is there?

The reason I suggested foam board and quality glue (I like Lexel) is that it's cheaper and easier to work with than spray foam.  On a flat surface it's about as good, too.  If you buried it in such a way that the walls wouldn't bow out it should stay glued. The corners would be the only place it wouldn't work.

Second, you may have just invented a heating/cooling system.  If your water table is high in summer and low in winter, then your insulation would try out in the fall to be ready to keep your tanks warm in winter.  However, the high water table in summer would prevent the insulation from insulating, thus giving you a natural subterranean cooling system.  Water won't hurt spray foam or foam board.

Hi guys, remember Archimedes of Syracuse ...that guy who told us that when our 50 gallon grow bed is filled with media (rocks, LECA, whatever) that it will no longer hold 50 gallons of water?

That same Principle of his, so aptly laid out over 2,200 years ago, also lets us know that "Any object, wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object".

It would be wise to consider the implications of this buoyant force when burying any tanks in the ground where a rising water table is a factor.

The volume of water displaced by your sump tank multiplied times the unit weight of water is equal to the buoyant force...and you don't want your sump tank shifting (floating) around possibly wreaking havoc with your plumbing etc...

Big fat, heavy concrete tanks buried in the ground will float and shift and make a big mess of things if this buoyant force was not taken into consideration and dealt with beforehand, it would stand to reason that an IBC, buried in the ground might subject to the same forces as well.  Just something to think about...

Hey Vlad,  I'm still not sure that would be an issue for Jeff, assuming the water doesn't come up above the water level in his tanks.  Even if it did, would a little shifting break anything in a plastic tank with a submersible pump?

I could see this as a bigger issue with concrete tanks because concrete has so many little air pockets that wouldn't become saturated right away in a flood, and would create its own buoyancy.  

Hi Jeremiah, I'm not saying that Jeff's sump will float, but neither am I saying that it will not. Only that if certain conditions conspire to align, it can. I've seen a buried IBC sump do that. Two of them actually. The one sump had the plumbing going through it's wall. There was a 2" PVC pipe that was 'clinched' by a 3/4" piece of steel tubing going over top of said pipe...about 3 feet away from where it entered the sump...putting much stress on the pipe...since the steel tube was not allowing the pipe to move upward. Luckily it was caught in time before the pipe was damaged (in which case a copious amount of water from the DWC trough it was connected to would have spilled out, adding to the mess).

I still bury my sumps when building out certain designs. And in no way am I saying for anyone NOT to do that. Just to think about some things ahead of time and see if they may apply to you, (to potentially help avoid those "Oh Shit"! moments). That's all.

I've seen a large boat (small ship) with a concrete bottom so I know concrete will float..... at least until it was rammed by the USS North Carolina LOL

Grow lights T 5s  give about five degrees of heat when outside temperature is 0 c the gas heater I have set at ten degrees ,finding when weather warm up the lights knock out the gas heater 

Sounds like all is going to go well since they made it 3 weeks. Congrats.

Vlad, Jeremiah: Update on in ground sump. I put 2" Styrofoam around the sides and bottom, no seal of any type. Unfortunately (or not) my yard has an extremely high water line. When the sump was low on water I found it floating really bad. The only way to correct it was to add water but I didn't have enough stored unchorinated water so I pumped the water that was around the sump in the ground into the sump. I was concerned that the water was going to cool down the sump but found out that since it already was in contact with sump it had risen substantially in temperature kinda like a heat storage tank. The water was clean so I still use the same method to add to my sump. We had torrential rain here last week and the water line around the sump was 4" below the ground surface. Had to almost fill the sump to compensate.

Hey Jeff, sorry to hear your sump ended up floating...Again, we need to stay within the parameters set forth 2,200 years ago by Archemedes of Alexandria from my earlier post..."Any object, wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object"...

I have the float problem under control now but if I did it over I would just put a long sump under the length of the GBs above the ground. Actually I'd like to move everything over about 4 ft. but that's kinda difficult with the in ground sump.

Any one try building a partially buried GH? I,'m in Colorado Mountains at 85,00ft. I would not want to spend a lot on heating during the winter months.

I worked on plans for having a cement north and west wall (and partial East) but had to scrap it for cost reasons.  Ended up with plans for just regular insulated walls instead.  I took ideas from these guys.  They use tires as the foundation but the principle is the same.  Using the earth has a heat mass.

https://greenhouseofthefuture.com/

also the GAHT from Ceres

http://www.ceresgs.com/#!how-it-works/c1anj

Thanks Austin

Good ideas!  Never thought about building greenhouse walls out of tires

Has anyone used or thought of using a electric tankless hot water heater to heat there gh or water using a transfer system?

I haven't seen anything on an electric one but there is info on a gas setup on this blog somewhere. Downfall to them are the need for 20-30 lbs of pressure and the water needs to be clean so you can't run your fish water through them.

Hiya

Thanks for the add, I am in Northern MI, close to Lake Huron. I am planning a small hoop house for some IBC aquaponics. Have a sheltered place for the hoophouse, main thing I am looking for is about 6 IBCs. Looking forward to ideas here.

Jake 

I would heat both the tank and the sump, if not the unheated one will pull down the heated one.

I've tried the DIY heaters on YouTube and had problems. I've used a 1500 watt bucket heater in my IBC fish tank for 2 years with no problems. You just have to plug it in to a control thermostat. It keeps the tank and sump warm. Just make sure whatever heater you use that you've insulated the tank to keep costs down.

Ditto on the insulation, styrofoam boards/panels around both would be money saved, a  couple 4 X 8 4"panels would  cost very little, under $20 I am sure.

A bucket heater is used for heating paint in a 5 gallon bucket. There are some that would warn you about fish safety but I've never had a problem. Mine is in my FT but you could put it in your sump. This is the one I use in my FT  https://www.amazon.com/Robertshaw-ETC-112000-000-Line-Voltage-Therm.... It requires some wiring to a outlet box.    

This is the one I use for my greenhouse fans. It's plug and play and would work for the FT. 

https://www.amazon.com/Temperature-Controller-bayite-Pre-Wired-Ther...

This is the bucket heater:  https://www.amazon.com/Allied-Precision-Premier-742G-Bucket/dp/B000...

I would run a ground wire into the water in your tank just in case of a problem.

I use 1" foamboard insulation on my FT. Thicker is always better but raises cost.

If you put the heater in your FT you don't have to worry about your sump running dry and frying the heater.

If you have it in a hoophouse or greenhouse and insulate the tank should be no problem heating it. Also dissipated heat from the FT will help warm the greenhouse. I run my grow lights at night to use the heat from them during the coldest part of the day. My system is 500 gallons too.

I just dropped it in the FT. My GH is only 8x22 and I kept it at a minimum 55 degrees with a wood heater and a propane heater. Will probably cost you more to heat the GH than FT. What kind of heat will you use? It will be tough to control the humidity with towers. I have a cool design for a rocket mass heater system to heat everything. Haven't implemented it due to having to rebuild everything in my GH but I'd be happy to share the design if you're interested.

Right now I have okra, tomatoes, egg plant and peppers in the greenhouse. I'll switch to cool weather plants for the winter. Just grow for fun and personal use. Don't have much on it but you can check out my Facebook page "Fish House Gardening" to get an idea of what I'm up to. My outside gardens have lots of different things growing. Not sure what the actual cost is for the bucket heater operation. It will depend on GH temp and tank insulation. I haven't built a rocket mass heater yet but from what I've seen it would be the absolute most economical way to do the whole operation with propane and bucket heater as a backup. I have the plans for my design on my home computer and will try to send them to you later.

I have pics in my photos on my page. It's more of a concept than design. There's no doubt in my mind that this is how I would go if I did it again. The design shows multiple FTs but can be done with one. Not sure how familiar you are with rocket mass heaters but the base is the heat "battery" that retains and releases heat slowly. The water in the FT also acts as a "battery" for more heat storage for the GH. I've never built a RMH but have done a lot of research on them.

This is my GH heater. It is a "Rocket Mass Heater" and the mass is the 2500g of water in the AP system. Water stores more than twice the BTUs in terms of weight or volume of rock or cobb. The black pipe inside i3 @ 7 feet of 3/4" SS pipe and the system water trickles thru it and raises the water temp about 2F in 24 hrs. I also have a pvc 100' solar collector mounted high up in the GH on the M wall and that will also raise the temp @ 2F on a sunny day. My build vids are under Fiskfarm on YT.