Insulation for the Fish Tanks

Sorry everyone for not posting lately, too many projects going on and with the daily grind of  "normal life" I haven't had much time to pursue my Aquaponics dream. Anyway, I decided to insulate the tops and bottoms of the fish tanks with 1" extruded polystyrene foam board that I picked up from Home Depot. I purchased four 4' x 8' sheets along with a couple of cans of 3M Super 77 spray adhesive to glue all the foam board up with. It was a challenge since I had to piece everything together on the top of the tanks due to the fact that I couldn't move the grow beds. Each individual piece had to be measured and cut to fit as no two pieces were the same. Time to complete 2-1/2 days. It was worth it and has cut down on the evaporative water loss from the fish tanks, which in turn has cut down on the humidity in the greenhouse. Oh..and did I mention the cost saving on electric to heat the water.  It dropped my bill by about 30%, almost to it's typical winter norm. And the cost for all of this was about $60 dollars. This is one of those " I wish I had done this sooner or first" situations. Hey, it's a learning experience...right? Oh well, I will know better in the future.  Of course, I am a little late on planting for seedlings, but that's for the next post. Until next time....

Insulation added to the Greenhouse

With the upcoming weather changes for fall/winter approaching, I decided to bite the bullet and put up some radiant type / bubble insulation with an R3.7 value. I placed all of this on Saturday last weekend and stapled it in place using a an Arrow T-50 stapler. I used approx. 8 - 2' x 25' rolls, and a single roll of 4'x25' for the IBC Fish Tanks. This material was placed along the end and side walls, and also along the roof trusses. This also provides extra reflective light back onto the plants for added growth.

We had a cold snap this morning which dropped the temp down to 52 degrees outside. With the insulation in place and the greenhouse closed up the temp stayed a balmy 74 degrees.

Not bad for this amount of insulation, of course winter has not set in yet, so for added protection I have purchased a small ceramic based heater which I will use to supplement the natural radiant heat of the greenhouse. I also have purchased a digital dual 500 watt Titanium aquarium heater unit which will be placed in the Fish Tanks to regulate the heat during the winter.

Next up, the building of an Aeroponics cloner/seedling starter system.

The Building of a Greenhouse

Well, after months of debate on the type and style of greenhouse to use, and after much consideration with respect to price for prefab structures I have opted to build my own greenhouse from the ground up...without using plans. Here is what it looks like thus far. I decided on a 12Wx20Lx9H structure to start with...

As you can see this is the post setting stage with an 80lb bag of concrete securing each post.

These are two old 7'x13' dog pens that I will be converting to cold frames once the greenhouse is finished.

  This is the Girt additions to tie it all together.

  and the trusses for the roof, the peak is 9 feet and the side walls are 5.5 feet, the whole structure is 12x20 which should provide plenty of room to start and I have plenty of room to grow the structure on the left side if needed.

The roof sheathing is being placed and regular composition roofing will be used on the north side of the structure. Notice the additional bracing on the girts.

The next stage was placing the siding, I used T1-11 and cut opening for windows and also place felt paper on the north side of the roof.

and here is the structure as it sits now, I have completed the purlins for the corrugated clear polycarbonate panels on the south facing portion of the roof, and painted them with white paint as recommended by the panel manufacturer. Now on to painting the rest of the greenhouse to match our home. Time to complete this stage - 2 weeks @ 4-5 hours per day.