Aquaponics System, Passive Solar Greenhouse build

[pinballlooking]

My AquaMax Dense 4000 order was canceled. I called the regional rep to try to get some ordered in for me.

Our Purina fish food comes from Gainesville GA distribution center. They don’t stock AquaMax Dense 4000 and will not special order one bag of it for me. They make it in FL and probably other plants.
They said they would UPS ship it for me be that would cost way too much.

So I special ordered a bag of AquaMax Grower 400 it will be in next Wednesday. It was $52.

The first place I called wanted $62 a bag for it and had it in stock but I wanted fresh food and did not want to pay an extra $10 for stale food.

I might look for someone local to split the 50 pound bag that way I would not have to store so much food.



I want to add some info to this. If you are wondering is after all this time why I am really trying to get the right fish food.

I now can keep the water temp where the fish will eat good over the winter. I have my filtering working for my DWC. I would like to concentrate on growing fish to the eating stage faster. Then replenishing the fish to start over. I would like to start growing different kinds of plants and have them grow faster.

It is time to start to fine tune the whole process.
The old fish food was .56 a pound the new fish food is $1.04 pound.

The fish food does not just feed the fish some of it makes to the plants. Having very good fish food is important for both fish and plants.

Things that need done.
I need to get power into the green house I am very close.
I need to get the siding finished and painted.
I need to get some metal trim work done.

I know there will be more stuff that needs done to the greenhouse as I fine tune it but once I finish this stuff I will have completed my plan to this stage.

Then I can work on the plant side of it.
What a crazy long project. I have learned so much along the way.

[pinballlooking]

I know this does not look like much but my greenhouse is finally has power inside.
The load center is on the outside wall.
I don’t really need much couple outlets. The top outlet is 240V for my fish tank heater.
I have been running off two long extension cords for close to two years now.




I ran a short hose under the foundation so I can use rain water to top off my sump tank without running a hose inside.
I have a float switch I am going to hookup so I don’t over fill the sump tank.

[jeff5may]

Yay! Running water and electricity!

[pinballlooking]

I am one step closer to installing my elect fish tank heater. I welded up a bracket to mount it to the side of the tank.
In this mild weather we are having I want to use solar power to heat the fish tank.

This is a 240 Volts heater. My temp controller will control a contactor. That way it will take away power from both legs when the controller tells it to be off.



I was reading my tank heater instructions and it said you must install it with a GFCI breaker. It is a 240V heater so I was bummed because they are expensive. I searched ebay and other places but I got lucky.

I went to amazon and it was $112.20 but there wherehouse deals had it $31.66 shipped prime. It has a couple scratches on it but I don’t care about scratches as long as it works. That was a so much better price.

My GFCI breaker just came in the mail. It was listed as having scratches but I don’t see any this was a great deal.

[pinballlooking]

I installed my electric fish tank heater. It is only 1,000 watts 240 volts but it can help out.

The natural gas heater is equivalent to 11,136 watts so it is a lot more powerful. The NG heater is on for 15 minutes and off for 15 minutes. The electric heater will run whenever the water temp needs to rise independent of the timer the NG heater is on.
I also connected my web monitoring so I know when it is calling for heat and how long it takes to heat up.
The only reason I installed this heater is because I have extra solar power to use to help heat the fish water.



The bucket around the heater is to keep the fish off the heater so they don't burned.

[Xringer]

It looks like your fair weather is going south, late next week..
Same up here too. At least the lows are going to be back to standard (real cold)..
That new heater reminds me of a test rig for a small outboard motor!

3412.142 BTUh isn't too shabby and it's better to use your solar for a good cause.?.

[pinballlooking]

Yes it looks like cold weather is coming back. That is funny it does look like a small outboard motor setup. I am still not sure I really need the bucket to keep the away from the heater. I have never really raised fish before does anyone know if the fish need to be kept away from the heater.

When I installed my electric heater I used a contactor that was made for three phase power.
I use it to power the heaters two hot legs. Then I used the third one to connect to my web monitoring.
Now have some data to tell me when heat is called for.
The natural gas heater can only run 20 min then it will shut its self off. I have it on a timer 15 min it is available for heating 15 min off. The elect heater will run whenever heat is called for.
This is why the run time varies so much but it is still useful.



It looks like if the closed loop NG heater is available it take 3-5 min to heat the water back up.
As it gets colder I will experiment with turning pump off at night.

Yesterday’s tomatoes


The orange bucket is gone. I removed it today another forum said it was not needed.
This will let the heater do a better job not being confined in the bucket.



I had an old small electrical box with a missing cover. So I drilled some holes in is for wiring. I put the contractor for the new heater in it. I know it does not look factory but it works and saved me some money.

[pinballlooking]

I turned off the pump last night it changed the heater run times. outside was about the same temp as the night before.
But since the closed loop heater only available every 15 min it is hard to compare apples to apples.
When the pump comes on in the morning it has to heat the water that is in the sump tank and DWC water.



The day before 72 min today it was 69 min.

The times above is only really how long the 1K heater runs so I do need more info.
I ordered another contactor so I will know how much time the closed loop heater is actually running.
After I know the info down the road I will use contactor for something else.

[pinballlooking]

I now have my heater logging working the way I want to. It Logs when it turns on and logs when it is turned off. I am experimenting to see if the 1K heater can do the job by itself and how much run time will it take to do it.
I my try seeing if the 1K heater and hold the fish tank during the day and at night with the pump off.
The in the morning enable the closed loop heater when the pump comes back on. Then let the 1K heater take over.

I know I can keep the fish alive no matter how cold it gets.
But the question is how much solar can I use to keep them warm but not run out of power for everything else.

It only went down to 57 last night but the 1K heater did fine. It took 1 ½ hours to bring it up to temp after the pump came on this morning. It will be getting cold in the next few nights so I will see how it can do on its own.

[pinballlooking]

I turned off the pump overnight ( it is on a timer ) and did not need to heat the fish tank at all. It went down to 32F last night outside. Greenhouse low was 57.9 F
fish tank stayed around 70F all night.
It took the heater 3 hours and 9 min. to heat backup the fish tank backup once the pump kicked back on in the morning . I am not using the natural gas heater at all right now.

Very happy with these results. My goal was to use the closed loop heater as backup heat or if we have a winter power outage use it to keep the fish alive this just might work out.