Aquarium Aquaponics System 4

As noted previously, my indoor Aquarium Aquaponics system didn’t work well for breeding tilapia. It was too chilly for the female tilapia to really get in the mood. With indoor temperatures between 75 and 78 F the aquarium water temp tended to stay between 70 and 73 F. I wasn’t willing to run lots of aquarium heaters only to cause more evaporation into the house just to have to run the dehumidifier and air conditioning more. So, I decided to try running an outdoor sump tank. I simply placed a blue barrel outside the window and ran the plumbing out and hooked up the pump out there. The sump tank sitting in the sun just outside that window did help warm the water for no extra heating costs (at least for most of the year.) It still wasn’t enough to make the system work for breeding tilapia. Now had a come up with the passive drain heater idea during the correct time of year, it might have worked. My passive drain heater idea involved sending some of the water draining into the sump out into a coil of black pipe before going back into the sump barrel. During summer this would probably have provided enough warm water to have heated the aquarium Aquaponics system up to breeding temperatures but by that time I had already moved the big aquarium outdoors.

For the period of time the Aquarium Aquaponics system was set up with the outdoor sump for heating the water, I had screwed some brackets into the wall to hold the board and insulation and keep the window secured. The outdoor sump provided a much easier place to install my automatic float top up valve which I think are very important additions to Home Aquaponics systems. So far I must say I have not managed to effectively utilize solar heating for my Aquaponics systems.