Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey,

So i made a little system and am thinking about in the future making a larger system. No camera right now so i cant share it

I want to grow year round and i live in Florida. I looked into indoor growing with lights but it just seems logical to use the free energy from the sun and that brought me to greenhouses. Will a greenhouse keep the plants warm enough to bear fruit and such year round? *i doubt it* Also, if i were to put a heater in the greenhouse in order to keep the temperature around 65-70 for the winter months... would that make the plants think its still fruiting time?

At times in the winter it gets to the 20s!! lol... Also, typically the coldest it will be through the night is 15 or so. Oh btw this is all in F temperatures.

Thanks,
Jason

Welcome Meseria.... most of us start with "small" systems... but most of us end up with "bigger" systems... not long after...

Few people around Florida way.... have a look at TCL's thread... she went from small... to bigger... to getting even bigger....

We have similar winter temps. Our summers are hotter and drier. I took the siding off a garage and put in sliding glass windows and AP. this last winter I had fresh tomatoes and lettuce from November to date. Ceiling and back wall insulated 3.5 inches with fiberglass, so tmps ranged no lower than 48F with FT water 50 deg or more. The two foot overhang help block some of the intense summer heat, but still to hot for tomatoes. This summer will try evaporative cooling.

Meseria,
What part of Florida are you in? I'm in the NW corner of Orange County so middle of the state north of Orlando. I did cold frame plastic over my system this past winter.

An AP system and keep going in Florida all winter long even with limited/no cold protection if you choose the right kind of plants and fish. Lots of plants like Broccoli, kohlrabi, carrots, and turnips can survive a hard freeze. I actually think the broccoli rather enjoyed waking up with ice all over it out in my dirt garden. For an outdoor AP system with limited temperature protection, I would probably choose catfish.

I spent a fair bit of extra money this past winter trying to keep tilapia warm enough. Next winter, I'm not planning to keep tilapia in the big system because trying to keep that system warm enough for them meant my plants suffered (too hot under plastic during the day so cool weather crops didn't do well over winter but the day length wasn't good enough for many of the warm weather crops.)

My recommendation if you do a greenhouse in Florida, make sure you have sides and ends that you can open up and get lots of air through during the day because a greenhouse all closed up here will get too hot even with shade cloth.

thats for sure on the roll-up curtain and poly design. heat is as bad of an enemy as cold is.

probably worse in florida. shade cloth is our dear friend

i would also advise to build the AP system first then put a GH around it. i did it the other way
and its sure not the way to go.

good luck to you and you AP. Johnny

Really good advice even as tempting as it is to go the other way!
If you do a search there is 2 or 3 other greenhouse threads in the forum with lots of good info and ideas! Heck I would love to see it as a seperate design catagory all its own like Hardware.

hi Jason you will have to consider light hours if you want to grow out of season plants, bonus with that is high pressure lamps give lots of heat too

I have a greenhouse system in Connecticut. I shut down the system this past winter because it's to expensive to heat, but I bet you would have no problem on the cold nights. I use gravel in my growbeds which works great as a thermal mass. I night it stays around 15 degrees F warmer inside.

Here's more info:
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5098
and
http://web4deb.blogspot.com/2008/08/site-prep-and-foundation.html

My "greenhouse" managed to protect papaya, peppers, and tomatoes through hard freezes that killed all those things out in the unprotected dirt garden.

I still recommend growing a type of fish that can handle cooler water though so you don't have to keep things sealed up even on warm days just to heat up the water. With something like Catfish that can handle water below 50 F, you are then free to leave the greenhouse open on all but the coldest nights which will let you grow all the wonderful cool weather crops that can happily grow all winter long here like lettuce, spinach, beets, turnips, broccoli, kohlrabi, carrots, peas, and many more. And if you close up the greenhouse on the frost/freeze warning nights, you will likely be able to keep the long season plants like tomatoes and peppers going and probably even manage to keep the tropicals like papaya alive to bear fruit. Many of these plants don't mind cool weather, they just get killed by frost or freeze.

Anyway, good luck.

has anyone tried solar heating for the FT water?

jeremy

You may want to read thru the hardware section first lots of good info. But here is a thread to start.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3976&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=solar+water+heater

This is Rupert of oz's system if you have any questions I'm not sure but I believe Spiritrancho has one also.

I did set up a thermosyphon system heating water in a 50 gal HW tank. Then I would pump to a coil in the FT contolled by a thermostat. I found that without a pump and differential control to the solar panel it did little for heating the FT. I have now abandoned the whole concept because i have found a source for bluegill that will tolerate water down to 35 deg.
In lieu of heating the water I intend to try heating the air in the greenhouse with an oil stove. I make biodiesel and it is cheap heat. By heating the air I can raise a greater viarity of crops in winter like tomatoes and the bluegill will continue to grow with water temp of 60 deg. F. They grow slowly so it will be worth the trouble and expence.