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Cheap Aquaponics Heating
16 minutes that may change the way you think about heating your aquaponics system. Redneck engineering, Nebraska style. I think I started working on this around the beginning of February.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jeremiah Robinson on
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Wow Larry you're brilliant! That is absolutely breathtaking! I love the use of computer blowers and pellet stove parts.
The oil attachment is a stroke of genius. Have you considered approaching a pellet stove manufacturer? I could put you in touch with a couple of guys who might consider working with you to incorporate it into their designs, if you want. The ability to run at a really low firing rate is worth gold.
If they had offered a redneck engineering course at my school I'd have taken it. Twice!
'Is that perlite insulation?
The only concern (at all) that I have with your system is that the PVC valve and rubber tubing seem a bit close to the heat source. Not that you need to follow code, but the fact that they suggest 18" separation before you transition away from metal probably means you should go more than 6".
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Permalink Reply by Max Gfx on
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Thanks! No, I haven't tried approaching any manufacturers. I don't know any and I doubt that anybody would take me seriously since I don't have a wall plastered with engineering degrees or any job related experience. I'm a computer and copier tech by trade, so I don't think that would impress any stove manufacturers.
The stuff around the stove is simple play sand that I added in small layers in order to cook any moisture out of it so the barrel doesn't rust out. The sand works as both an insulator and thermal mass at the same time. It's mainly there to force as much heat from the fire into the copper coil as possible. However, it is also a heat conductor that will transfer heat into the cement casing around the stove, which allows it to continue to put heat into the water for a couple hours even after the fire is out.
The PVC valve and the poly tubing are temporary. I have an actual hydronic pump that I'm going to connect to the bottom of the blue barrel and feed into a custom CPVC manifold and valve rig so I can utilize the heated antifreeze and water in other ways as well. But as for the temperature where that connects to the stove, it never gets too hot to touch, so there's not really even any risk of things melting right there. All the real heat is at the back of the stove.
Attached to this message is a picture of the stove with the sand-pack complete.
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Greenhouse-Stove.jpg, 216 KB
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Permalink Reply by Jack Dunbar on
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Nice set up Larry. I wish you'd draw up a set of plans and market it. That's something that I'd be interested in for my future greenhouse. I have a woodstove in my house with a hot water coil on the outside of the stove that heats my hot water in the winter. I have a big wood lot so cord wood is pretty reasonable but as I get older, it has become more work. Like Jeremiah has stated, that oil attachment is a stroke of genius. Take care...
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If I knew where to begin with creating plans, I'd do that. The whole thing just came together from watching various YouTube videos from others who had created their own pellet stoves and gravity drip feed oil stoves. Nothing was built from any predetermined measurements, and I honestly didn't know how well it would work (or even if it would at all) while I was making it. All I knew for sure was that I wanted a heating system that I could light in the morning and feel safe walking away from it for the rest of the day.
The drip feed oil stoves were a novel little idea. However, just like a rocket stove, they just run in an endless increasing heat source, no way to regulate either one. The DIY pellet stoves that I looked at were nice and easy enough to build, but they still chewed through pellets way too fast. One 40 pound bag per day is really wasteful in my opinion, even in the case of ones that had thermostats and auto ignition.
That's how and why I came up with the idea to combine the two different fuels. Oil by itself doesn't burn well unless it's turned into a spray or the burn pot is already wicked hot. So, to me, the logical solution was to use the wood pellets simply as an ignitor for the oil. The pellets burn just fine on their own and the coals heat up the oil and turn it into a vapor that burns up in the flames. I found it incredibly hard to believe that you couldn't just buy something like this. I'm guessing there must be some law or industry standard that insists that this combination is a bad idea and that's why nobody makes one.
Today out here in western Nebraska we're having another one of those freak spring snow storms. 33 degrees outside, fish tank was at 65 degrees at 7:30 this morning and the garage/greenhouse was 60 degrees. Here it is 8 hours later, I've burned about half a gallon of pellets and a half gallon of oil. The fish tank is back up to 78 degrees and it's almost 80 degrees in the garage/greenhouse again. Granted, that's only a total of 300 gallons of fish tank and sump water, and 55 gallons of antifreeze/water as my heat conductor. But, what did it cost me to achieve that? I'm cycling the system with simple goldfish right now and the pump/aerator/skimmer pulls about half of the power that I showed on my Kill-A-Watt meter. So, the heating system by itself pulls the other 40 watts. That means all it cost me was 40 watts for 8 hours, maybe 50 cents worth of pellets and the waste oil was free. Sure beats the pants off of the operating cost of any other aquaponic heating system I've ever seen.
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Hey Larry,
You don't need a wall of engineering degrees. I say that as someone who has one. Pieces of paper only get your foot in the door. After that it's what you have to offer. You just need the courage to try something unfamiliar and the persistence to learn new things (like making plans). My impression is that you have both of these things - in spades!
Anyhow, I have a friend who designs and builds the most efficient pellet stoves in the world (based on the EPA's testing). You can see his website here: www.seraph-industries.com/. If you're open to it, I'd like to run your idea by him.
There may be a good reason that it doesn't work, such as safety. Or there may be a reason it's not marketable. But I'm often surprised by what nobody has ever tried before, such as freezer fish tanks. You might have hit on something here.
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Yeah, go ahead and run it by him, I'd be curious as to what an expert's opinion might be on this - and an explanation as to why this hasn't been done in a commercially available product. I can only assume that it has to be something to do with the bad reputation that fuel oil furnaces developed for being messy and stinky. Or, perhaps, it could have something to do with the pain in the ass of having to strain/filter your waste oil before trying to run it through a needle valve? I do know that waste motor oil does leave a little bit of a mess in the burn pot that has to be chipped out before lighting the stove again, more than likely because of metal shavings in the oil that melt together and clump up. Who knows, I'm just sure there is some reason this isn't a commercially available option.
BTW: That freezer fish tank is an awesome idea!
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OOPS sorry about my first post. I guess your name is Larry. Well anyway Larry, what you got to lose...Jeremiah can run the idea by his friend. Maybe you're on to something that nobody else has thought of. I've met a lot of people out there that should have been Engineers but never went to school for it. I work for Uncle Sam at a shipyard and some of the greatest ideas have come from the guys in the trenches. One idea leads to another and then bingo... problem solved. No matter what you decide,like Jeremiahs idea with freezer fish tanks. I just gave an old freezer away as scrap. If one only knew... I hope you keep us informed on how well it works.
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Max is my middle name, so I go by both...I guess I may have to show some of my other Frankenstein creations (aside from the two planter how-to photo albums in my profile here). Since my current project is doing a garage to greenhouse conversion, I'm using T5 fluorescent lighting. To save on power, I'm only using one large fixture per wall motorized on a rail. Even more redneck engineering, using a track and casters for a sliding closet door, driven by a 3 RPM DC high torque gear motor and a wheel/tire from an RC/Robotics hobby supplier. Yes, in this case, I could buy a commercial product sold as a "LightRail", but they want $300 and I can redneck engineer an equivalent for less than $50.
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Just thought I'd share a couple things on the stove here that came to me via Facebook...
One guy suggested creating a little catalytic convertor over the top of the burn pot using a few pieces of lava rock in a grate spaced loosely and insisted that it would burn any smoke that might escape the burn pot. I didn't have a grate handy, so I just decided to put 3 small pieces of lava rock in the burn pot in the path of the air stream. Yeah buddy, that had a serious unexpected effect. Barely over an hour later the burn pot was glowing red hot and the water in the chimney heat exchanger was over 145 degrees. So he is definitely onto something here.
Another person asked if the 140 degree water/antifreeze in the barrel presents a heat danger to the fish. The answer is no, the fish tank water circulating through the stainless steel coil in the barrel transfers heat slowly over the course of 12 hours or so. The water coming into the fish tank through the PVC isn't even hot enough to scald the fish. In my tests, the water only comes out 10 degrees hotter than it was going into the stainless steel coil. The temperature sensor on the sump not only shuts off the stove when the fish tank reaches 77 degrees, but also shuts off the pump that circulates the fish tank water through the stainless steel coil. This heating system absolutely will not boil or scald the fish.
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Had another one come in on Facebook...Apparently, one guy said I was "gloating" in my second video about the efficiency of the system and wanted to know what my efficiency and BTU numbers are. Uhhh, I have no idea how to even calculate that stuff, but here are some figures from today that might help somebody else figure it out.
9:45am today, fish tank and antifreeze/water barrel both at 65 degrees.
Lit the stove and added two 16oz cups of pellets to the hopper.
1:45pm now, probably 8oz of pellets left, probably burned 16oz of oil.
Barrel of antifreeze/water now at 135 degrees, fish tank now at 73 degrees.
Burn pot glowing, obviously somewhere close to 1000 degrees.
Exhaust temp coming out of the chimney is 232 degrees.Anybody have any idea how to calculate the numbers?
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Water takes 1 Btu to raise 1 degree. With your water volume you could easily calculate Btu/hr.
By the way, you shouldn't change the temps of your fish tank more than a few degrees per day. Tilapia won't freak out, but long term it's stressful on fish.
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