View Single Post
  #7   Report Post  
Old 21-09-2014, 05:42 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible
Jenn[_2_] Jenn[_2_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Sep 2014
Posts: 9
Default Aquaponics & Geodesic domes for greenhouses

On 9/21/2014 6:07 AM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
Jenn wrote:
On 9/19/2014 5:48 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
Jenn wrote:
Is this the right group to discuss Aquaponics and Geocentric domes
for greenhouses?

Or is Rec.gardens a better group?

thanks.

It wouldn't make much difference, this NG has more emphasis on fruit
and vegetables but that is not OT on the other group. On aquaponics
there isn't much talk on either. On geocentric domes there is
unlikely to be any at all. If you mean geodesic domes that could be
more fun.


You're right ... I meant geodesic domes.


I would be surprised if there are too many commercial greenhouses that
stray from either box structure or arched roof design. I gather there
are some but you need to ask why you want one.

DIY greenhouse designs are mainly hoop houses. That is a rectangular
floor plan with an arched roof and sides built of bent members - usually
polymer tube. You will find many plans for these on the web. They have
the advantage of being fairly cheap and simple to build out of commonly
available materials.

Geodesic designs allow you to have a roof with no internal posts at the
expense of the self-supporting dome shell being constructed out of
planar polygons - mainly triangles. It is hard for me to see why you
would bother as there is no particular problem with internal posts in a
greenhouse and making a self-supporting dome out of triangles requires
unusual structural members and forms that are not at all readily
available and that would be quite hard to fabricate yourself. Another
issue is the covering would have to be manufactured by joining many
triangles together. This is an added expense and every seam is a point
of weakness. In the more traditional designs the number of seams is far
fewer depending on the size of the house compared to the size of
available polymer covering.

If you are going for the coolness factor or you have some special
aversion to internal posts by all means but I am yet to be convinced the
design is very cost effective for this application.


We haven't built one yet, but my husband has been researching them to
see if one would be useful for our small back yard. He's shown me some
videos on how they are built and covered, too.

We're urban farmers on a small scale, and have a large back yard raised
bed garden on one side of our back yard, and on the other side we have a
chicken coop with laying hens. Between the garden and the chicken coop
we have a small greenhouse where we overwintered some peppers, and other
container grown veggies, including a couple of kumquat plants, a lemon
and a lime tree. My husband set up an aquaponics area where he raised
fish and pumped the fish water into grow beds above the fish containers.
He raised lettuce, and some strawberries and other similar veggies
during last winter. Eventually, he went to raising tilapia and by
spring the fish had outgrown their tank in the greenhouse, so he bought
a larger tank and now has a large setup in the middle of the back yard
where he's raising tilapia, and they've been breeding, so we also have
various size fish now.

Since fall is on it's way, he's moving the smaller fish back into the
small greenhouse, and putting the really tiny baby fish into the sump
that feeds the tank there. Now, he's left with the larger fish that are
still outside and he's wanting to build a dome over it for the winter.
I'm not sure that's going to work, though. I was looking for other
ideas and thoughts on what we might could do.

thanks for any suggestions.

--
Jenn