Jimbo
27th June 2007, 01:15 PM
Howdy folks,
as I have posted before I live near Canberra where the winters are cold! At the moment it is 2.8 degrees outside and while the North American members probably don't think that is cold we all know that any fish we want to grow do think it is cold. At the moment this cold is putting a complete hold on further work on the system with the exception of my plan for heating the water.
So I have been planning , mostly in my head, a heater for my fish tank (4500l buried almost completely), which is completely solar powered.
I have a couple of old solar hot water panels, about 25 years old but still working until removed from a roof about a month ago, given to me by a mate.
I have also managed to find a 12V pump (Davies Craig EBP) which will run quite well from a 10w solar panel (also in stock) Might need to add an ATA maximiser to ensure proper pumping.
My plan is to use a glycol solution and heat exchange mechanism so that I don't have to worry about the panel freezing and also to minimise the contact the fish water has with whatever might come off the pipes in the panel.
At this stage it is fairly straightforward- make a stand for the Panel, hook up the PV panel, run the plumbing from the heater panel to the tank.
As the pump would only run when the sun shines I don't expect to lose any heat back to the panel at night.
Only one remaining problem- what to make the heat exchanger out of. My initial plan was to simply buy a coil of the 13mm soft copper pipe, which I used when I plumbed the hot water panels on the roof of my house into the heat exchange unit for home water heating, and join it into the loop with compression fittings.
Now the big question is how do I/we determine how likely it is that the copper from the coil will damage the fish. Everything I have read about copper toxicity talks about COPPER SULPHATE which is very soluble in water.
I know that Doug Basberg painted his copper heat exchanger pipes which are in the fish tank. He has had so much trouble that it seems very hard to pin down the source of his fish deaths and so who knows if it is copper toxicity.
My gut feeling is that copper pipes simply sitting in the water should NOT release significant copper into the water. I have also considered having the coil coated with something- perhaps chrome or powder coated - don't want to use paint as that is a whole new can of worms re toxicity.
Has anyone any hard evidence that metallic copper simply sitting in water will dissolve into the water in any significant concentrations?
Is it possible to buy test kits to check for copper in water?
Just had a thought- s**** metal merchants- aluminium or stainless steel pipe- would be easy to bend the aluminium and almost impossible with the SS. SS would be inert but perhaps unobtainable- what do people think about aluminium?
Must be a very sensitive filter on this forum- the bleeped out word was s****metal or recyclying?
as I have posted before I live near Canberra where the winters are cold! At the moment it is 2.8 degrees outside and while the North American members probably don't think that is cold we all know that any fish we want to grow do think it is cold. At the moment this cold is putting a complete hold on further work on the system with the exception of my plan for heating the water.
So I have been planning , mostly in my head, a heater for my fish tank (4500l buried almost completely), which is completely solar powered.
I have a couple of old solar hot water panels, about 25 years old but still working until removed from a roof about a month ago, given to me by a mate.
I have also managed to find a 12V pump (Davies Craig EBP) which will run quite well from a 10w solar panel (also in stock) Might need to add an ATA maximiser to ensure proper pumping.
My plan is to use a glycol solution and heat exchange mechanism so that I don't have to worry about the panel freezing and also to minimise the contact the fish water has with whatever might come off the pipes in the panel.
At this stage it is fairly straightforward- make a stand for the Panel, hook up the PV panel, run the plumbing from the heater panel to the tank.
As the pump would only run when the sun shines I don't expect to lose any heat back to the panel at night.
Only one remaining problem- what to make the heat exchanger out of. My initial plan was to simply buy a coil of the 13mm soft copper pipe, which I used when I plumbed the hot water panels on the roof of my house into the heat exchange unit for home water heating, and join it into the loop with compression fittings.
Now the big question is how do I/we determine how likely it is that the copper from the coil will damage the fish. Everything I have read about copper toxicity talks about COPPER SULPHATE which is very soluble in water.
I know that Doug Basberg painted his copper heat exchanger pipes which are in the fish tank. He has had so much trouble that it seems very hard to pin down the source of his fish deaths and so who knows if it is copper toxicity.
My gut feeling is that copper pipes simply sitting in the water should NOT release significant copper into the water. I have also considered having the coil coated with something- perhaps chrome or powder coated - don't want to use paint as that is a whole new can of worms re toxicity.
Has anyone any hard evidence that metallic copper simply sitting in water will dissolve into the water in any significant concentrations?
Is it possible to buy test kits to check for copper in water?
Just had a thought- s**** metal merchants- aluminium or stainless steel pipe- would be easy to bend the aluminium and almost impossible with the SS. SS would be inert but perhaps unobtainable- what do people think about aluminium?
Must be a very sensitive filter on this forum- the bleeped out word was s****metal or recyclying?