I'm about to create the most ghetto pond ever lol it will be around 1000 gallons and is basically a large metal water troff for horses and such set up for fish with my own home made filtration system on it. I live in south east Texas so most of the year our weather is tropical, but for a few months it gets down to the low 20s and 30s. I want to find a natural way of keeping the water warm without using any electricity whatsoever. Any ideas?
Natural pond heating, no electricity
- Thread starter charles-n-charge
- Start date
Green house effect. Want more info? If u like the idea tell me cuz I don't want to type it all if u don't want to do it lol
None whatsoever eh? That's hard, how are you going to filter w/o electricity? I'm thinking the filter return could be really long, and run it all thoughout yer house so the water takes the heat of your house... I doubt it would keep the pond anywhere near 70 though. How about a propane water heater?
Zfishies;4823623; said:
You mean like have it covered to hold in heat? Explain lol I'm up for anything that might work
You'd have to build a greenhouse around it...
There was someone who had an outdoor pond, and they took a big piece of black tarp (or maybe it was black garbage bags), and put it a few inches in the water, but spread out. Since black absorbs all visible radiation (which is why, on sunny days, dark clothes feel warmer than light clothes). They were able to heat their water to 90F. It'd be a pain to have to place it, remove it, place it, remove it, to keep a semi-constant temperature. And it'd have to be in direct sunlight.
You could use a boiler than runs on gas.
You could also dig and dig and dig until you've dug so deep you can harness the planet's geothermal energy.
Honestly, electricity is one of those things you can't just DIY.
There was someone who had an outdoor pond, and they took a big piece of black tarp (or maybe it was black garbage bags), and put it a few inches in the water, but spread out. Since black absorbs all visible radiation (which is why, on sunny days, dark clothes feel warmer than light clothes). They were able to heat their water to 90F. It'd be a pain to have to place it, remove it, place it, remove it, to keep a semi-constant temperature. And it'd have to be in direct sunlight.
You could use a boiler than runs on gas.
You could also dig and dig and dig until you've dug so deep you can harness the planet's geothermal energy.
Honestly, electricity is one of those things you can't just DIY.
If you could run some piping below the frost line, you could use natural ground heat. In Texas, your "frostline" is probably less that 12". But, that would only get you a consistant 60 degrees plus/minus...plus, you would still have to pump the water to gain any benefit.
You could ask a friend who's handy with wiring to rig something up for you kinda like this: You have a big container that's solid black, containing water. This sits outside somewhere where the sun will hit it all day long. There's a pipe running through it, that comes from your pond, and ends up in your pond. A thermostat is placed into the pond, and when the temperature falls below, say 76, it turns on a pump which pumps water from the pond, through the pipe which goes through this black container, and back into the pond, until it reaches, say 78 degrees, and then it turns the pump off. Since the container is black and in direct sunlight, it's temperature will get pretty high, meaning the water sitting in it gets pretty hot. The water from the pond and the water in this container don't actually ever mix, but the pipe sits in the hot water, and when the water from the pond is pumped through it, it heats up (good old second law of thermodynamics).
You might still need to run heaters at night, but this will cut your cost roughly in half.
You might still need to run heaters at night, but this will cut your cost roughly in half.
Was going to say what Jux was, go by that and ull be golden. I have the thread I'll post it up one sec