Passive solar greenhouse / aquaponics system planning/build

scotty435

Good catch Rob. Kind of nice that you were there when it was happening so you could tell what was going on. Sometimes you just show up and all the water is missing but you can't tell how or why :dontknow:

- usually it's a siphon forming like this or an overflow because of a blockage.

rininger85

Yeah I was lucky it happened last night, I'll be gone for 4 days this weekend so I could have lost 250 tilapia if it had siphoned a few more hours.

gnoib

Close call, good that you caught it.

rininger85

the tilapia were all back to starving last night, so it doesn't appear the cold water affected them too much. I did plug a heater in to help warm the water back up quicker after adding 100+ gallons from the hose in to the system. Will let it run another day or two and unplug it. Everything seemed fine last night but I am pretty anxious to get the beds cleaned out now so I don't get another bed overflowing. I'll at least drill a hole in the top of the 90 out of the tilapia tank before I go away for the weekend so there will be a siphon break if I can't manage to get anything else done before then (not home tonight, then tomorrow will be spent getting stuff ready to go away for the weekend then friday leaving when we get out of work so not much time to get much done).

I finished filling the first of the two additional IBC tanks and half filled the other last night will finish filling tomorrow. I'll let it soak a few days then drain and refill it and get a second system up and cycling outside of the greenhouse. It might be a bit late in the year to put anything in there... but I might spread some of the tilapia out or spread the catfish / bluegills out to give them more room. I think I might put a temporary hoop house over the IBC tanks for winter to see if being in a hoop house would be enough to keep them from freezing solid so I know for future years if I can run them in a hoop house through winter.

rininger85

I cut down almost all of the tomato plants in the greenhouse today. Cleaning it out and took a bunch of cuttings I stuck in the DWC to root, will replant them to have a fresh start on tomatoes for winter.

Also mentioned my plans to build a small hoop house attached to the greenhouse to my wife and she didn't kill me so will probably work on that tomorrow. I am going to put my two new IBC tanks in a small hoop house to see if they will survive the winter without freezing. Will also add a couple of beds in there to use nutrients from the second system.

rininger85

Ok so no more talk, it's happening! I started out thinking 10x12, then looked back at a previous post about stanb's design and thought I could do 12x12, because his we're 12x20 with sweeping 90s at the top to make steeper walls... I bought the sweeping 90s and tried going 12 wide but didn't think it would work well so I dropped down to 10 wide, but then decided to go 16 long... This has been all on the fly I did not plan out any of what I was going to do is why it changed so many times, but in the end it's 10x16 and will butt up to the greenhouse. I will have two, maybe eventually 3 fish tanks in it, and I will have at least two but maybe three or four beds total. I will have to poke a hole through the wall to feed power from inside the greenhouse to run a pump for this system, I will keep them as two separate systems at least for now.

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joblow

I like the shape of it, great stuff :thumbright:

rininger85

I'm only using 1 inch PVC so elected to go with the high peak angle to hopefully keep snow from sticking to it.

joblow

With that profile it should would a treat, I don't think you could improve on the shape :headbang:

rininger85

My wife is on vacation this week staying home with the kid because daycare is closed as they are on a family vacation... So here is her project for this afternoon/tonight... Canning tomatoes... Making tomato soup etc.

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gnoib

Nice load of Toms.

rininger85

I think the toms have all been canned... hopefully shes done canning toms for the year... I really don't like canning toms, probably least favorite thing to can so I'm glad she did it while I wasn't home. The garden is dying back a notch already and we started pulling stuff out. Went and bought a yard of compost to start amending beds for next year... I am going to try to get some lettuce and other greens going so we will hopefully have them growing through fall and winter as we're cleaning up bits and pieces of the garden and hoop house I'll keep adding stuff back that should be OK for fall and winter.

rininger85

I got a few hours of work in on the fish House expansion this weekend. It is mostly covered just need to build a door. I got the internal pipes for the fish tanks cut and ready to go, started working on the rest of the plumbing but had to run to the store for more PVC then did the cover when I got back instead. I bought the lumber and cinder blocks for the beds. Will try to get the beds built this week and finish the plumbing so I can get it running by the weekend to start it cycling. I did at least fill the tanks, so I might scoop a couple of fish and toss them in there to help kick off the cycling in the meanwhile before I get the plumbing finished.

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boss

Very cool looking Rob. What kind of structure is this one? It looks different at the top than the other.

rininger85

I don't know if there is a name for it Brian... I copied the design from a guy on another forum that lives in a high snow area... instead of using two pieces of electrical conduit I used two pieces plus a sweeping 90 fitting so it gives it a higher arch so snow should be less likely to settle on it... The other hoop house did OK since I used 1.5 inch PVC and put a permanent beam down the center, but I used 1 inch PVC on this one and no permanent beam as of yet so I went with the higher arch to test it out. It seemed pretty weak as I was putting it together and was a little worried that I had made a bad decision but once I put the plastic on it is a lot sturdier. I only went with builders plastic so it might only last a couple of years but I probably only used about 30ft of a 100ft roll so I can recover it a couple of times if I need to... but most likely this will only be a temporary structure for a couple of years before I can afford to expand my greenhouse to double the size of it to 16x32... but I easily had someplace in the ballpark of $3-5K in building the 16x16 greenhouse, so I need to pay off credit cards before I decide to start that project.

I guess even then if I do expand the greenhouse I can move this hoop house someplace else and continue using it for something else if it holds up to the winters OK... but by that point I would probably just buy greenhouse plastic for it... in this case I got enough plastic to cover it three times for $78, would probably be at least 2-3x that to buy the greenhouse plastic for it which would probably last about the same length of time as covering it 2-3x with the cheap stuff. Definitely can tell a difference in the quality though, it is not as see thru as my greenhouse plastic but thats OK because it may reduce the amount of sun in the summer so I might be able to grow lettuce better in the summer (probably not, probably still need shade cloth)... time will tell if it was a good idea or not.

I will still probably add some more 2x4s to tie the cross supports together so the top can't spread with snow weight... and at that point I can probably add some temporary beam supports if the snow does look to be a problem. I also need to get some rebar to hammer in the ground and attach this so it doesn't blow away because it is a floating structure right now.

Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics