A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

In greenhouse or not?

I am a complete newbie, near Gainesville. Here to learn. Trying to decide where to place small DIY starter setup. Probably Talapia. In greenhouse would be convenient, but I'm afraid it would get too hot in July-August. On the deck is second option, but then there are space and predator issues. Any thoughts? Thanks, Robert

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Permalink Reply by Robert McClellan on May 24, 2011 at 3:30pm

I'm open to suggestions. Went to Tractor Supply today and saw some black plastic "Rubbermaid" stock tanks - between 100 and 250 gallons. Anyone have experience with these? Also, learning that Tilapia may not be the best choice-maybe Bluegill or ??? I'm planning to heat the tank in some manner...what that is depends on the size and placement.

Permalink Reply by Ron Thompson on May 24, 2011 at 3:45pm

I'd go with the 250 at least.

Here is what I have been using for the last 18 months - $75 at Amazon (though I got mine for $50 at local wal-mart). I expected to replace it every year but it has shown no signs of fatigue at all.

For winter cold I insulated it with silver backed bubble wrap from Lowes ($25). I looked at a lot of heater options and went with the easiest and most dependable (though not cheapest option), a side mounted Tank heated - $120 @ stockyard supply

Permalink Reply by Robert McClellan on May 24, 2011 at 3:57pm

Great idea. I looked at those pools today at Walmart. They are inflatable, right?? But--I have peacocks and guineas, and thought they would pop a hole in the thing with their claws...

Permalink Reply by Ron Thompson on May 24, 2011 at 4:18pm

hmm.. could be an issue. The insulating wrap would offer some protection.. maybe a fence of chicken wire?

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on May 24, 2011 at 4:19pm

I'm kinda partial to these tanks now

$498.00 Kinda $$$$$ I know

Permalink Reply by Izzy on May 24, 2011 at 6:49pm

TC, how many gallons is that?

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on May 24, 2011 at 7:05pm

They call it 410 but that would probably be filled to the rim so I"m calling it a 300 gallon tank with enough freeboard to rescue some jumpers.

Permalink Reply by Ed Hall on June 20, 2011 at 6:22am

Just an idea for cooling or heating. I did some research on alternative sources of cooling, and one method I found was to run say 250 ft of cheap black plastic hose say 18-24 inches under ground where the ground temperature stays @ 75*F all year arround. That would help reduce the temperature of the water in the summer, or heat the water in the 1-2 months of cold we see. Obviously, for cooling a house the system would be much larger, but for the size of the systems we are talking about, it would not take much hose buried underground to cool/heat a 300-1000 gal. system. I know that arround Cocoa, Fl, the ground temp stayes about 75-77 degrees all year around, or so the studies that were done claim. I intend on building something along those lines when I set up my tanks, when I get home of course. right now, I am in Singapore.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on June 20, 2011 at 7:07am

How effective running loops of pipe in the ground of course will depend greatly on the climate, the soil type, and the amount of space you have and if you can dig up enough ground to make it work.

I did a little bit of research into geo-exchange heating/cooling a while back and discovered that in sandy, dry (sandy dry soil is not a good heat exchange media) soil with so many more cooling days per year than heating days that an acre or property would not be enough to make loops to cool even an increadibly HVAC efficient home.

Now since a fish tank is much less than a house, and the desired fish tank water temp is warmer, it might still work here in central Florida, however, if you are doing flood and drain, most of the benefit will probably quickly be lost.

Permalink Reply by Lanza on July 1, 2011 at 1:02pm

I'm just curious on greenhouses in florida, because I live in the northern part of florida and sometimes we do get pretty cold winter spikes. Not as cold as up north, freezing or anything, but enough to have temperature variation in your water system. Would having a greenhouse, or even an open greenhouse system where you can keep it cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter with portable windows and sliding doors that allow enough access to light for plants, be more beneficial in keeping control over homeostasis with the water temps for the crops and fish? Because if you did have a larger system, maybe very small commercial scale, then wouldn't you want have more control over variables like temp when the hot summers come and the cold spikes in the winter hit? Just want to brainstorm here..

TCLynx said:

I noted that he said a small system. And if it is a flood and drain media bed system, temperatures can swing pretty extreme. Now I've got a couple 300 gallon tank systems and so far during the hot spring I don't think either one has gotten over 90 F but I expect if I had say a barrel ponics system going out in the full sun here, I would already have seen water temps in it get to 95 F seeing as it's been over 100 F in the shade here a few times already this spring. The water will not move in temperature all that rapidly on it's own but if there is only 40 gallons and you are running it through a flood and drain gravel bed in the sun, well flood and drain gravel makes a very effective heat exchanger with the air and well any fish you keep in a system with only a small amount of water in the hot season here, well they better like a hot tub.

More water will help, shade will help. I'm not all the keen on greenhouses any more for Florida personally. Definitely only use a greenhouse if it can become more open like a shade or screen house in summer.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on July 1, 2011 at 3:54pm

Well, I'm of the opinion that it just gets way to hot in a greenhouse here in summer so if you must have a greenhouse (even if you can completely remove the sides and open vents in the top, it will still be a bit too hot in a greenhouse here in summer and you will need to add fans and shade cloth just to get down to even with the "outdoors" so unless you are planning to install air conditioning and insulated glass for the greenhouse, you will not make it cooler in the greenhouse that outdoors in the peak of summer sunny season.

Now there may be some benefits of a greenhouse that would still make it worthwhile for a commercial operation and that is mainly in the ability to collect rain water off the roof and stop the rain water falling directly into the system so you can control water input.

In winter if you are trying to grow tilapia in North FL you will need the greenhouse. However if you are willing to grow a more cold tolerant variety of native fish and seasonally appropriate veggies, you can manage without a greenhouse and avoid the pest problems that seem to plague the greenhouse far more than out in the open.

Even in North FL you can probably manage all the cool weather crops right through the winter by just using simple season extension products like floating row covers to avoid frost burn during the coldest month or two.

To some extent this is just me liking some of the native fish better and being very partial to cool weather veggies. When I was running my system in a greenhouse It was too hot in summer and in winter it still got too cold at night and would get too hot during the day so I had far more plant problems then and I still had to heat the water to keep the tilapia alive with a flood and drain system here in central Florida and the cool weather crops didn't do very well for me in the greenhouse in winter. This past winter was my first year totally without greenhouse and my plants did absolutely fab through the winter and I haven't had any spider mite infestations since the greenhouse went away.