Aquaponics System, Passive Solar Greenhouse build

[stevehull]

Pinball,

Is that small air pump (793 GPH) powered by AC or DC? I looked it up on the Amazon link you provided, but no information on power type.

Am looking for a DC powered air pump EXACTLY like this for one of my ponds.

Great write up and pictures.

Steve

[pinballlooking]

This new pump is AC and only uses 18 watts. I also have a DC air pump that I posted in the thread. http://ecorenovator.org/forum/45253-post128.html

The DC pump will be on a contactor so when the AC power goes out it will automatically switch to the DC pump. The battery will be charged with a small solar panel. I have everything to set this up there are just other things that need done before I can get this setup.

[pinballlooking]

I put one auto opener on the middle vent. Yesterday was sunny and with all the front vents working and the one back vent working. The greenhouse stayed below 80 for almost the whole day.

I added the second opener to that middle vent last night. Today it is cool out and will storm later all vents closed. This should be very self temp maintaining over the summer. One of the goals was to not be a slave to the greenhouse and the venting will help with this a lot.

Here it is with both auto vents working.

[pinballlooking]

I have house guest so progress will be slow for a week but that ok because greenhouse is in a good place right now. Here are the plants.

[pinballlooking]

Last couple days we have worked to tie up and trim the tomatoes. They need to be able to get some air movement through them. We picked one and others are getting red.



My house guest are going so I can get back to work on the greenhouse.
It is going to get t 32 F on Sat night crazy one last cold night.

[pinballlooking]

We have been working on getting the tomatoes tied up and trimmed back. I took out the cattle panels between them. I am going to weld up brackets to move the water pipe closer to the grow bed. I have bigger water valves to put in that will not clog up so easily.






I am thinking about drilling holes in the stand legs bolting or just welding them together and moving the front grow bed 6’- 7” inches away from the front window. This will give more room to get in front of the plants. Right now it is hard to get in front of the plants. The angled wall takes away room when you are up there.

[jeff5may]

I would definitely take the grow bed out more than 6 inches. More like as wide as your shoulders. Do not make any of your grow beds a permanent part of the structure! They need to be stout, since your media is gravel, but they should be able to be shut down and quarantined or disinfected if necessary. Ideally, you should be able to access the entire perimeter of each bed, but due to space limitations this is usually not practical.

For the beds that do not have complete perimeter access, they need to be narrow enough to reach the far side without needing ladders or stepstools. Don't worry, just because the beds do not have a huge footprint does not mean you cannot grow enough plants to completely fill the greenhouse. Remember that tomatoes do not feed off of the upper canopy of leaves like most other plants. They have to have light penetrating into the sunleaves near the flowering nodes for efficient energy transport and bountiful harvest. If you end up with a solid canopy, the tomatoes far away from the light source will be bland and more prone to disease or cracking.

The way you have your main bed loaded now, the existing plants need to be thinned out or they will outgrow your entire floor plan in a month. Start yanking out the smaller tomatoes (roots and all) that are not bearing fruit yet. Either transplant them into dirt pots so they can go outdoors in a month (your garden or someone else's) or throw them in the compost bin. Start chopping off suckers and open up that forest before bugs or diseases move in.

[pinballlooking]

6” is as far out as I can go and still open the door. The PVC water inlet takes some of that room I am going to move that this weekend. You can walk back there now it is just a little too tight. That grow bed it not even 3’ wide but it still makes it had to get to the front.

We have been giving away tomatoes plants to lots of people just starting their gardens. Since these just started on their own I don’t know exactly what kind they are. We only planted three kinds last year so it is one of them.


I cut up some poloycarb to cover the three glass windows. It just fits very tight so it is just pressed in between the 2x6’s. in the winter I will take it back out to let in more light and heat in.

[pinballlooking]

I saw this video and loved the idea. I had a radial flow filter I was not using. I thought that tank would be the perfect for this project.

My back pressure was reduced when I switched from a spray bar to this new setup. I am now pumping more water than before with less power.
This reduced my power usage down to 92 watts this is for my water pump and new air pump.
This new setup saved enough power to completely cover my new my new DWC air pump for the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO9rGlcXMJg

I welded up a very tall stand and ran new plumbing. It is putting in some pretty good air.




Here is the video air being added to the water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77MqKOd2TK4

I welded up some L brackets and moved the front grow bed water pipe closer to the bed. This giver more room to walk in front of the bed. I also installed some big valves to the grow bed. There will not clog up as easy.


We had some fresh vegies for lunch.

[pinballlooking]

It got down to 32 degrees the other night. So I got out my flir one thermal imager and took a few pictures of the greenhouse.
This is the west side you can really see the insulation working on the left. You can see the polycarb radiating out heat.


This is the east side.

This is the door knob and air or wind actually is coming through it.


Here are the back vents I have not insulated between them yet you can really see the heat coming out there.



This is my heat reflecting off the greenhouse.


This is the temp on a barrel at the top then again at the bottom.



Here are the water pipes you see how warm the water is.


I hope you find these as interesting as I did.