Solar Hot Water Heater for Fish Tanks

OK...so I got the great idea of building a solar hot water heater out of black poly tubing and having that connected to one of my fish tanks in order to cut the electric bill down on the aquarium heaters I run. I am having mixed results, with a net gain of 4-5 degrees over the ambient temperature of the fish tank water. I was expecting much more.

Initially, I placed 75ft of poly tubing into a 4'x4' box (2x4's) made out of Dow blue board and clear / white poly carbonate panels with the inside painted black as shown in the video.  This is all connected to an Aquatop 496 GPH submersible pump which has been choked down to about 250 GPH to give the water enough transit time through the pipe to heat up. I found that I did not have enough pipe so I added another 100' to the existing pipe, I am in the process of sealing the box, and I will need to use glass on the front to better trap the heat as the poly panels don't do a good job. I have a resource to buy cheap used windows and will be heading down to look for one soon.  I have posted some pics of the unit as well.

 Until next time....

The sewing of Romaine Lettuce and Collard Greens

Aquaponics is amazing....after sowing several dozen Romaine lettuce seeds of various varieties. I was surprised to find that after 3 days most of the seeds had sprouted. This is truly amazing considering that normal germination for these seeds type is 7-10 days. I also did the same with a pack of Collard Green seeds and unexpectedly these also sprouted in 3 days while normal germination is 10-21 days. I have included a few photos to show the new babies.

 You can see the new lettuce sprouts next to the new Bell Pepper plants in the pic above.

 A closer view, I'm going to have to cull a few of these as they get bigger.

And yet more....

Here is a shot of the collard sprouts.

I also had a Basil harvest this past weekend due to the fact that the plants were starting to get lengthy and falling over. I cut these back and dried the leaves. I still have quite a few younger plants for fresh cut leaves when needed.

Next post  to follow will provide an overview the new solar hot water panel I put together to heat the fish tank water.