wood stove for heating pond water good idea?

[fahad ahmed]

Hello you guys, i was wondering if my diagram is a good idea to heat my pond and greenhouse. My pond is 15ftlong 9ft wide 4ft deep-only in the middle -4,000gal total . I live in arlington TX and the temperature drops below freezing most winters. I have tropical fish in the pond such as 1ft silver aro 7in silver aro ,3 5in jack dempsey, 1ft clownknife and some other fish but not to many
Do you guys think my idea will work?

1 more thing forgot that copper is not safe for fish. What can i replace it with? And the stove is not huge it will be a small one

 

[morewater]

Embers and plastic don't sound like a good combination.

Here's an electrical flow-through heater system

http://www.apexpondsupply.com/page11.html

Alternately, a natural gas pool heater would probably cost less to run than a hydro dependent system.

Using either electrical or natural gas, you would have to run either constantly to maintain the heated water, humping out in the middle of the night to put wood on the fire for your fish sounds like an oxymoron to me.

"Wake up, it's time to take your sleeping pill" sort of deal. JMO

 

[fahad ahmed]

Embers and plastic don't sound like a good combination.

Here's an electrical flow-through heater system

http://www.apexpondsupply.com/page11.html

Alternately, a natural gas pool heater would probably cost less to run than a hydro dependent system.

Using either electrical or natural gas, you would have to run either constantly to maintain the heated water, humping out in the middle of the night to put wood on the fire for your fish sounds like an oxymoron to me.

"Wake up, it's time to take your sleeping pill" sort of deal. JMO

 

[Mmathis]

Hello and welcome!

Are you wanting to run pond water through the heater, then back into the pond? How hot are you talking about? Seems like that would harm the fish, but maybe I'm not understanding your drawing.....

 

[fahad ahmed]

The thing is winter here is just 3to4 months long

Hello and welcome!

Are you wanting to run pond water through the heater, then back into the pond? How hot are you talking about? Seems like that would harm the fish, but maybe I'm not understanding your drawing.....

Hi, the small pump is a second pump that will take the water to the fire and hot water will be going to the pond. I didnt draw the filter pump

 

[davepratt]

don't seem to me you would have any way to control the temperature and you may cook your fishies

 

[davepratt]

but im thinking with a few minor adjustments you could make some MoonShine

 

[Dave 54]

Hello you guys, i was wondering if my diagram is a good idea to heat my pond and greenhouse. My pond is 15ftlong 9ft wide 4ft deep-only in the middle -4,000gal total . I live in arlington TX and the temperature drops below freezing most winters. I have tropical fish in the pond such as 1ft silver aro 7in silver aro ,3 5in jack dempsey, 1ft clownknife and some other fish but not to many
Do you guys think my idea will work?

1 more thing forgot that copper is not safe for fish. What can i replace it with? And the stove is not huge it will be a small one

Fahad welcome from plymouth in the UK as everyone else states plastics and fire wont go together , however I have an idea that needs experimenting with to see if it works which involves a central heating pump with thermostat to control your temperature, a very long length of the underfloor heating pipe and a large compost heap to generate the heat.
The underfloor heating pipe is plastic and flexible so it can be coiled down under the heap and then led off to the pond around the pond then back to connect up with the pump ( any pipewok in the ground can be lagged with pipe laggng to keep in the heat).
The pump and pipe are then primed with water and compost is placed over the coil and is allowed to decompose which generates a great ammount of heat the more compost in the heap the greater the heat, if you see where I'm coming from here ?
It might not work but hey if it does thats all the better.
We have a filter housing over our three 32" vortex sytle filters and barrel filter , the sides are lagged with 22 mm polystyreene sheets and its roof is Quad thickness policarbonate roofing sheets along with our free standing lagged pond which has double thickness policarbonate sheeting placed over it we get a temperature of 7c at its lowest 9c at its highest and thats down to -15c outside .
If it gets any lower we also have in the filter housing an oil heated radiator which heat up the oil switches off then allows the oil to cool switching on again to heat up the oil it heats the air in the housing and under test gave us a temperature of 11c at 800 watts .
So there are a couple of ideas for if you wish to experiment ?

Dave

 

[MitchM]

..
Do you guys think my idea will work?..

No, it won't work.

Arowanas need water temperature to be a minimum of about 73 degrees.
If your ambient air temperature gets down to 32 degrees, and your ground temperature is somewhere around 50 degrees, you won't be able with that stove to supply enough BTU's to keep the pond temperature warm enough.

Your best bet would be to put an insulation cover over the pond, supply air to compensate for the loss of gas exchange caused by the insulation cover and then supply some heat into the pond via a heated coil of liquid or an electric heater.
It will be very expensive to heat that pond to the proper temperature during the winter.
Start taking pond water temperature readings now to get an idea at what air temperature you will need to start applying heat to the pond.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

I think it would work out fine. Expensive, but ok.
A thermostat and a pump would work, look at closed loop radiant heating for houses to give you a great idea. They do have outdoor wood burners that like wet wood.
For the pond loop, all you would need is some spacer or floats to keep the loop off the liner. You could use per pipe for the loops, nice and lite and very removable