redoing my fish tank

[troypearce]

Hello all,

I must say that this site is informative and entertaining. I am addicted to aquaponics and my greenhouse fish tank; grow beds etc need to be reworked for efficiency.

I currently have two IBC tanks (fish tank and the top 1/3 for grow beds) and two other wooden grow beds..... two different racks with PVC gutters and had strawberry towers as well (they did not work very well in my system). all in a 10' by 12' green house.

But I have started to contemplate the idea of installing a single multi-compartment tank in the ground (mostly) and am considering making it out of concrete block with a poured bottom. Each section of the tank would have a somewhat conical bottom to facilitate cleaning and all the inlets would circulate the water in one direction to create a cyclone effect.

I like the idea of a concrete tank but am unsure how fish safe it would be..... Would like to coat it with white plaster or thouro-seal to be able to see the fish better and to aid in waterproofing.

Another option may be to frame it in pressure treated and use a liner with formed sand or concrete bottom.... but the liners being mostly black are a little discouraging and somewhat expensive.

Has any one out there made a concrete/ concrete block tank out there??? And if so any advice in this endeavor would be appreciated. Additionally I wonder how much insulation the ground would provide. I keep my tanks at about 71 degrees and heating even this much in the winter and in the greenhouse is really noticeable in my power bill.



Thanks

Troy Pearce

[dead_sled]

Hello. I don't have that much experience with tanks. I just bought my first two ibc's. I am sure someone will chime in on that. As far as heating, I am looking at building a solar collector to heat the tanks. I am planning on installing the tanks in the ground, surrounded by soil on three sides. The solar collector will then be used to heat the ground around the tanks. I figure that the thermal mass will help keeps the water temp a bit more stable. Here is an example of a diy solar collector:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Experime...W/Overview.htm

Enjoy!

[troypearce]

thanks sled

I love that site..... used it to build my first thermal collector. I borrowed heavily for my hot water storage tank..... I am using a pool solar that was given to me to heat the tank and then rolled drip tubing for a heat exchanger for the fish tank as I did not want fish water to contact copper of the solar collector.

Thanks for the reply and the link

Troy