Geothermal/climate battery style? You’re a man after my own heart, pede.
That’s actually a long term goal. Move out of state and build a bigger greenhouse complete with passive solar design, PV or wind power and a climate battery. Grow food year round, regardless of the weather off the grid. Assuming this smaller test one works out here.
In the short term however I don’t think that’s practical or cost effective. My tank is only going to be 330 gallons with another 600 or so of grow bed. I’m not sure how much line I’d need to bury or how deep but the cost of the excavation alone would probably kill my budget.
A radiator outside in the shade might work though.... only pump through it when the water hits a certain temperature and shut the loop off the rest of the year. If the water is filtered from the grow beds it shouldn’t clog.
Something for me to consider.
In my application the water leaves the fish tank and goes through a settling tank to get most the big heavy stuff. From there it passes through the expanded shale media of my grow beds (~500gal worth of media in total) in series and drains into my sump.
My theory is that it should be pretty well filtered by this point both mechanically and chemically and then using the single pump I could send it through the radiator and back to the fish tank.
I can’t comment on flow rate and filters. I’m admittedly a novice. As I understand it aquaponics work best on low pressure and slower water turnover rates. As long as I can move the volume of my tank once an hour that’s all I need to do. The way I figure it there’s not much in terms of solids that wont get filtered out through 500 gallons of rock.
Geothermal/climate battery style? You’re a man after my own heart, pede.
That’s actually a long term goal. Move out of state and build a bigger greenhouse complete with passive solar design, PV or wind power and a climate battery. Grow food year round, regardless of the weather off the grid. Assuming this smaller test one works out here.
In the short term however I don’t think that’s practical or cost effective. My tank is only going to be 330 gallons with another 600 or so of grow bed. I’m not sure how much line I’d need to bury or how deep but the cost of the excavation alone would probably kill my budget.
A radiator outside in the shade might work though.... only pump through it when the water hits a certain temperature and shut the loop off the rest of the year. If the water is filtered from the grow beds it shouldn’t clog. Something for me to consider.
Wow, a passive filter?! Ingenious! That might solve some of the problems on another project I have involving water pressure.
How would it filter with a higher flow rate? Just better radiator inlet distribution?
In my application the water leaves the fish tank and goes through a settling tank to get most the big heavy stuff. From there it passes through the expanded shale media of my grow beds (~500gal worth of media in total) in series and drains into my sump.
My theory is that it should be pretty well filtered by this point both mechanically and chemically and then using the single pump I could send it through the radiator and back to the fish tank.
I can’t comment on flow rate and filters. I’m admittedly a novice. As I understand it aquaponics work best on low pressure and slower water turnover rates. As long as I can move the volume of my tank once an hour that’s all I need to do. The way I figure it there’s not much in terms of solids that wont get filtered out through 500 gallons of rock.