Water cooling using aquaponics tank
- Thread starter Ken Beck
- Start date
Its more than practical when you live in warmer climates so the fish wont die from cold, and its a lot less supplemental light needed to grow plants fast. I live in Michigan, so reliable weather doesnt exist. My best option for year round plants is inside where i can control all variables, it just costs electricity for heat and light. But if it is done correctly i think it can still be worth the investment.
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
I think its awesome that you are doing this. Are you using Tilapia?
I went to a commercial facility here in Oregon, but he was using HPS grow lights over huge beds, and his electrical bills were crazy. There is no cash crop short of cannabis that could support that (he was growing basil). He said the whole operation was a proof of concept, and he planned to take it to Cali where everything would be in greenhouses and the water recycling would be more of an economic and environmental motivation. He couldn't even sell his fish (long story, lots of food industry hoops to jump through).
I'm toying with some ideas, completely for aesthetics. I love fish tanks but haven't had one in decades. I've grown cannabis using SIPs, which often have a good sized reservoir. I've played with ideas for combining the two... but there are issues. I'm not sure if my gold fish would eat my cannabis roots! LOL Now that I've got some auto seeds, I might try a small version of the idea...
Theoretically cannibis would grow very well in an aeroponics system using tilapia and supplementing the other nutrients with seaweed extract but thats for someone else to try. I personally dont have a caregivers card nor a wife that would allow it lol. Hps would be super expensive....that guy must be insane for having a system with those lights just to grow basil. Couldve gotten 5000k DD bin cree 3590 cobs and cut the electric bill in half. Maybe even less to be honest.
I use tilapia in my system as those are the most forgiving fish and can eat a wide variety of food for their diet. Almost like the water version of a chicken lol. They are tolerant of temps down into the low 60s but they grow slow and are less active. I was thinking a large version of the system i have could keep fish warm up until winter and maybe using air source heat pumps or geothermal heat pumps to heat in the dead of winter.
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Humanrob
Well-Known Member
The commercial place I visited was almost three years ago, doesn't seem like a long time, but COB technology was not as widely available or accepted then. The bottom line is he was a young guy, and obviously well funded, someone (family I believe) was paying for his experiment.
I've also been told that Tilapia are the water-chickens of choice because they can survive with very little light (being from deep muddy Amazon rivers, IIRC), and since light promotes algae and that would compete with the farmed plants for nutrients, that would be bad. That was one aspect of commercial aquaponics that was hard for me to deal with, fish growing in dark plastic tanks. But I guess nothing is perfect.
Mine are in light a lot. They will eat algae but i threw in a pleco awhile ago to keep the tank really clean. Have never done any water changes at all. Just add water once in awhile. I tried to do duckweed which doubles every 24-48hours thinking it could feed them and they ate the entire tank full in only 2 days....need to rethink that strategy another day and come up with something that can substitute at least half their food so cost for feed is very minimal.
SSGrower
Well-Known Member
@Ken Beck Thing is sophisticated to some (i.e. like the idea of aquaponics is to me) people like yourself who are looking for innovative solutions are often hampered by the fear, anxiety, concerns of not being an expert in a certain area. What I would caution you on with the use of one timer is that starting both the pump at the same time may be problematic (correct me if this is not what is hapening and you are managing inrush or total I). also not knowing all there is to know, what if heater is running too? The sophistication of automation I will not argue, the general principles of what you need to automate are not sophisticated. Also, safety parameters could have prevent the thermal runaway you experienced. One of my first adventures into automation was this DIY design build throwdown
say what you will about my hobbyist approach to this, I claim not be be a Subject Mater Expert (SME) in much of anything, there certainly are a lot of do-dads out there. Sorry you had to discover the advantage of a closed loop liquid thermal management system (notice I do not say cooling, as tins is not cooling and is commonly then misconstrued by many as effectively equal to running an air conditioner, which isn't really a cooler, its a heater).
The way I see it you need to monitor a few temperatures 2 water, 2 air. Most people (on the mj side) seem to not care about systems integration, check out toronto toke's 8 hr experiment, that is the next automation hurdle I'm looking at, if you have any interest in doing this check out aquaporn on youtube. I'd be happy to offer any assistance I can but id bet you could integrate a lot of things in a month, I mean a fully operational thinga-mobob!!
out
say what you will about my hobbyist approach to this, I claim not be be a Subject Mater Expert (SME) in much of anything, there certainly are a lot of do-dads out there. Sorry you had to discover the advantage of a closed loop liquid thermal management system (notice I do not say cooling, as tins is not cooling and is commonly then misconstrued by many as effectively equal to running an air conditioner, which isn't really a cooler, its a heater).
The way I see it you need to monitor a few temperatures 2 water, 2 air. Most people (on the mj side) seem to not care about systems integration, check out toronto toke's 8 hr experiment, that is the next automation hurdle I'm looking at, if you have any interest in doing this check out aquaporn on youtube. I'd be happy to offer any assistance I can but id bet you could integrate a lot of things in a month, I mean a fully operational thinga-mobob!!
outI do see the need for temperature monitoring for the fish water and the heatsink. But my goal is more along the lines of something that some average person could put together over the weekend with no programming experience, little soldering experience, and little mechanical knowledge. My wife has family that arent the brightest crayons in the box so this is why i am starting this way. I definitely do see a commercial application for this that could be very profitable growing any type of plant with a very effective use of space. That would 100% require computerized monitoring. At some point i know the small brushless pump for the closed loop will fail and the cobs will fry within minutes, but im ok with it as then i can test something else. Its more of an excuse to keep buying more equipment lol....dont tell the wife that.@Ken Beck Thing is sophisticated to some (i.e. like the idea of aquaponics is to me) people like yourself who are looking for innovative solutions are often hampered by the fear, anxiety, concerns of not being an expert in a certain area. What I would caution you on with the use of one timer is that starting both the pump at the same time may be problematic (correct me if this is not what is hapening and you are managing inrush or total I). also not knowing all there is to know, what if heater is running too? The sophistication of automation I will not argue, the general principles of what you need to automate are not sophisticated. Also, safety parameters could have prevent the thermal runaway you experienced. One of my first adventures into automation was this DIY design build throwdown
say what you will about my hobbyist approach to this, I claim not be be a Subject Mater Expert (SME) in much of anything, there certainly are a lot of do-dads out there. Sorry you had to discover the advantage of a closed loop liquid thermal management system (notice I do not say cooling, as tins is not cooling and is commonly then misconstrued by many as effectively equal to running an air conditioner, which isn't really a cooler, its a heater).
The way I see it you need to monitor a few temperatures 2 water, 2 air. Most people (on the mj side) seem to not care about systems integration, check out toronto toke's 8 hr experiment, that is the next automation hurdle I'm looking at, if you have any interest in doing this check out aquaporn on youtube. I'd be happy to offer any assistance I can but id bet you could integrate a lot of things in a month, I mean a fully operational thinga-mobob!!
But yea i will definitely do an arduino or a raspberry pi to do that on the 3rd system. 2nd one i will do a start to finish with pictures and/or video so i wont have to repeat the info of the setup over and over. I'll probably do another thread here or in the hydroponics/aeroponics sections. Possibly a youtube video. Perfecting the simple system is top priority. Then i would think of everything else as add-ons that could be done.
Exterior room 1st floor. Its actually kind of funny because there are 2 windows there and one faces the street with people driving by and taking second glances. Its not much warmer than the rest of the house with all the heat from the lights and power supply.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
My approach was to drill blind into a thick wall water block; that is, don't drill holes all the way through into the water cavity;
I honestly dont know how thick the aluminum is on mine but the one i took down i will check and see. Worst case i go through and use a rubber ring under the screws to keep it water tight. Time to test it out and see.
nevergoodenuf
Well-Known Member
Locktite might also be a good sealant?
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Gasket sealant in the screw hole of one that broke through worked fine, and my system runs with a fair amount of water pressure.
SSGrower
Well-Known Member
So long as you dont tell mine Im thinking about getting a couple of fish.....
Depends how well you do explaing that side of things.
Damn Straight. Trouble is if you're lookin to make money of anything you gotta keep some things proprietary. Unfortunately think the QB developers (the guys on here peadiling their asses off at the razors edge of lighting tech) here are feeling a bit of retaliation imo because they are (and hopefully continue to be) so open with the development and design of a widget (the Jetson's reference not apple) with the hopes of selling it.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
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I dont want to make anything proprietary. Things like patents on common designs annoy me. And proprietary things like what apple does irks me to no end. I make a decent income as it is so im not worried about others doing this. I would encourage others to make a business out of this or help to research more. There is so much that we dont know on these subjects like the limits of leds and how the spectrums emitted affect plants. I am doing this on my free time so my time is a little limited. But i'll try to keep adjusting and fixing and modifying everything so i can make the mistakes and nobody else has to have the same setbacks or hit dead ends or waste money. Just my thoughts on it.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
I'm taking lots of notes.
If i dont make the dumb mistakes, then how can we be sure it is idiot proof? LolLearn more form failure...Just don't make a habit of it.