posted 3 years ago
I have a large aquarium in my rented apartment. It is a first floor apartment so I have a covered patio in the back. In my attempts to learn about solar energy, I would like to make a hot water heater to keep the water in the aquarium at about 28 degree - the aquarium is about 300 liters. I was thinking about using some fresnel lenses to heat an intermediate liquid (anti-freeze?) and storing that in a heavily insulated tank, then pumping the aquarium water through a heat exchanger in the tank to heat the water. Temps here range from a low of 6 degrees in the winter to a high of 40 in the summer. Obviously, I will have a different problem in the summer! Any ideas?