Geothermal Aquaponics

[William J Silverthorn]

I have not seen any discussions about GeoThermal water temperature regulation, and I can think of many reasons why it could be a bad idea in an AP system, but I wonder if anyone has found a way to make this work???

most geothermal water temperature regulation set-ups that I have seen would be a more permanent design, and being buried under a widely dispersed area for ensuring a broad area of exposure, which would make it difficult if even possible to conduct periodic maintenance and cleaning out of whatever might clog a closed loop system rich with nitrates and fish solids.

I imagine that it might be possible to incorporate into an AP design, but difficult to design with accessible maintenance in mind that wont harm the efficiency of the design.

if a water pump pipe is routed from a sump tank down a well and back up before taking its regular course into the top of an AP design, then you could use this to regulate the temperature of your fishtank to that of the well water (without mixing the two), and possibly provide a more stable environment for certain designs that might previously have unstable temperature swings at certain times of the year.

thoughts?

[Pat James]

Last year, I had to cool my greenhouse so I could even stand to be in there. I found one of those simple misting hoses did wonders. Water does accumulate on the floor. You can buy a misting kit for a few bucks at Lowes. I thought of using some kind of fan to add to the effect but could not figure a good way to protect the fan from water damage.

[Devoid]

No I have not. Yesterday my water temp was 90 degrees in my big system. Most plants are doing poorly for me unfortunately.

Around central Texas it looks like the general till of thumb is 68 degrees plus or minus 7 degrees depending on season at 8 ft deep.

I'm looking at building two more troughs and a green house for winter and trying to figure out how to put cooling coils in first.

[Mark Hall]

Actually I installed an "earth tube" for a client. I tried to talk them out of it, cause all my research showed that we would not gain much cooling advantage. We had an underground structure and the owner wanted to get to 70 degrees air temp.

But the earth temp is stable at 25 feet below ground and has seasonal fluctuations above that level. The 25' stable temp. in San Antonio is 75 degrees. We buried the earth tube at 14' and it travelled 300' on terrain that sloped down. We kept a downward pitch on the tube away from the bunker so that condensation would flow out. The tube exited grade and has a screen over the end. 

The project proved me right. We ended up capping the tube inside the bunker cause all it did was introduce 85 degree humid air during the summer. Maybe in a greenhouse environment the humidity would be ok, but it was damaging all the stored provisions in this case. Have to mention that they had 2 minisplits running since the tube could not lower the temp. enough. That caused more of a humidity issue until we capped the tubes.

Devoid said:

No I have not. Yesterday my water temp was 90 degrees in my big system. Most plants are doing poorly for me unfortunately.

Around central Texas it looks like the general till of thumb is 68 degrees plus or minus 7 degrees depending on season at 8 ft deep.

I'm looking at building two more troughs and a green house for winter and trying to figure out how to put cooling coils in first.

[Paul Smith]

Hi Friends,

Here is a link to a group who have built several subterranean heat storage and temperature conditioning greenhouse systems.

http://www.sunnyjohn.com/indexpages/shcs.htm

I wish for You,,, A fantastic Day!!  Paul.

[Mark Hall]

Thanks...I've been studying these SHCS systems and they seem great for heating because you have a huge temp. heat build up during the day in a greenhouse (totally free) which can be stored in the soil and then accessed at night, but on the cooling side during 100 degree temps. there is no source of cool that is easily accessed. Do you know of an affordable source of cool for the folks who live in the south? Deep well water, but that requires a big pump.

Evaporative cooling is the original phase change system and still seems to be the best. The only design nuance that I can add is a natural convection loop that eliminates or reduces the wattage of blowers. 

[Devoid]

Hey Mark,
From my understanding the ground temp is 68 f with + / - 7 degrees at 8 ft deep. My plan was to run water through tubing to help cool the system water. I have no idea how to calculate heat loss and cooling ability on such a thing. All I know is the my water temp is 86 f at 10am this morning, yesterday evening it was at 90 f. I'm not sure what effect that has on the plants as I've not been having any luck growing stuff in the system.

SunnyJohn was my introduction to shcs couple years ago, got me interested in geothermal heating and cooling for my house. Sadly drilling wells is too expensive for me. Then I came across citrus in the snow. He takes the shcs a step further for his house to get rid of the humidity. His greenhouse makes me want to try tropical fruits her in Texas. Things like Dragon fruit and such.

@ mark of you run a closed system into a well then you can use a smaller pump. If you can loop coils of pex tubing or such into your well with both ends coming up. If you put water into one side, it will equal out between the two sides. If one side is filled all the way up, so is the other side. So I think you'll only have to figure out flow rate to get maximum cooling. Oh and the water would go to a heat exchange and back into the tubing. Always separated from system water

[Averan]

I read somewhere about someone using salt water as the coolant fluid. The added salt increases water's ability to store heat and transport more of it away underground. The saltier the better.

[Jim Troyer]

they have fans here in Arizona with the misters mounted on the front of the fan in the air stream, my local discount tire uses one.  They are cool to watch work and do the trick for sure

Pat James said:

Last year, I had to cool my greenhouse so I could even stand to be in there. I found one of those simple misting hoses did wonders. Water does accumulate on the floor. You can buy a misting kit for a few bucks at Lowes. I thought of using some kind of fan to add to the effect but could not figure a good way to protect the fan from water damage.

[Jon Paul]

Geothermal Aquaponics sounds pretty cool.  When i started building my greenhouse i wanted to run pipes into the ground to help regulate the Aquaponics water temp, but instead i decided that it would be easier to dig a crawl space and put the tanks down there.  After building the greenhouse and crawling around in the crawl space to work on stuff, i thought why not dig out a walk way in the middle so i could walk down there.  It is very nice and cool in the basement.  The Basement temp does not swing in temperature like it does in the greenhouse above.  I like the basement of the greenhouse so much that it is the first place that i go when i enter the greenhouse.

Now i am digging out the basement even more.  The point in the corner is 10' deep. It's where my new 275 gallon IBC sump tank will go.  Of course i will have to poor a pad and a new stim wall so everything does not fall apart.  The deeper that i dig the basement the more thermal mass i will have and the more space i will have for tanks.  Its realy nice having the fish tanks and sumps down there because the it helps keep the water cool.  It also saves much space in the greenhouse above.  

If anyone is thinking about building a greenhouse for their aquaponics system there are a couple of good reasons  to having a basement

1)The basement is a good place to store things that need to stay cool like fish food or seaweed extract. 

2)The basement is a good place for things like sump tanks and fish tanks

3)The basement works like a geothermal system and helps regulate temperatures

4)The basement is a good place for things like controllers, electrical panels, battery banks, boilers, and anything else thats needed 

My greenhouse is 200 sq ft and is located in an aria that is dry and frequently gets to 100 in the summer.  It has one swamp cooler that blows 76 air into the greenhouse.  The swamp cooler does more than one air exchange per minute.  Today it got to 93 outside and the inside temperature got to 92 according to my neptune controler.  On hot summer days the greenhouse can get above 100.  I will be installing a second swamp cooler to help keep up with those hot summer days.  The second swamp cooler will also be a back up in case the first one fails.  Do not even try to cool your greenhouse using a true geothermal system as the heat gains in a greenhouse are astronomical.  

I have decided to keep my tank water between 70 and 72 .  The tanks do not overheat in the basement. 

Words of advise for someone putting a basement under there greenhouse

1)Put a sump pump down there

    a)sooner of later you will forget to turn of the fill water and the tanks will overflow and you will be taking a sump pump down anyways 

    b)I use a gravel vacuum to suck debris out of my settling tank and run the water into a bucket with a sump pump in it.  

    c)Plane and simple, sump pumps just comes in handy. 

2)If you have Greenhouse that is small like mine and you don't have room for a staircase, install a permanent ladder down to your personal underground layer.  Put the ladderway in the corner so its out of the way.  

3)Install a hatch in the middle of the floor.  Use a hatch with two doors 24" x 42" for a total opening size of 48" x 42" so you can get IBC totes and anything else you might need down there.

4)Install a hoist above your hatch to lift things in and out.  I got my hoist from harbor freight for $170

5)Put you radio in the basement so you can jam out and not make the nabors mad. 

[Mark Hall]

Thanks Jonathan.......very creative setup. You've got me thinking about digging a big hole.

[Don Goddard]

RE the email "Your Opinion Counts" This is a request to feed information to MONSANTO: John Hopkins is not trying to help us. Check the connection between Monsanto and John Hopkins University. http://truenorthreports.com/frightening-food-part-iii-gmo-labeling-...

[Paul Smith]

Hi Friends,

The old saying, "Follow the Money," is always true.  Just because something is labled, "Organic," doesn't necessarily make it healthy.  I guess you could stretch the fact that refined sugar is organic if you keep looking at the loopholes.

I have had great success with growing hybred tomatoes this year.  They are great and the whole family is enjoying them.

My Wish for You,, A Fantastic Day!! Paul.