Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am rookie at this so please don't think I am an idiot. Still learning the tricks of aquaponics.

Ok so I have set up a small scale aquaponics setup in my basement in February. Tried catfish in my tubs and can't keep them alive to save my soul. Keep getting like open ulcers on them and die. After changing water completely when this happens I gave up on catfish for time being. Now I have a couple bluegill and some koi and no issues there at all. All Healthy.

My growbed is a 4' x 4' square. Each is 4' Long by 2' wide. 2 for a total 4' x 4' space. Set up the bell siphons and getting the pressure adjust to make the flow correctly took a little work. All good now I think. Fills slow drains fast, like I read it should do for proper fertilization...

My lights are likely the problem why I can't get lettuce, peas, herbs etc to grow. It will sprout and get about 5" then stop growing. Lettuce is so spindley... I have started over with my crop and have new lettuce seeds that have sprouted in less then 48 hours. I am trying to do this as cheap as possible without a huge spike in electric bill and I am on a very fixed income. First I started with 2 36" light fixtures and bought some Corallife bulbs from Petco on Cleanace for $2.50 each. 2 are 10K lumens, 2 are 6500K lumens and also bought 2 50/50 bulbs. I was hoping 1 bulb per grow bed but that wasn't seeming to work no matter which combo of these bulbs I used. These bulbs are about 8" above plants in middle of grow bed.

So... I added a 4 foot shop light with 2 T8 4500k lumen bulbs. This is hanging about 18" above plants in center of the two grow beds. Still no growth. Yesterday I added another shop light with 1 T8 6500k lumen and 1 4500K lumen bulb. I placed this one directly over one grow bed and is 8" above plants.

How do I know if the problem is with the lighting or the amount of fertilizer in water or room tempreture/water tempreture etc? I love to garden and love my fish tanks so I was hoping to combine the too and produce a crop from this. I know florescents are the best source of light. There is small window in room that is on south side of house so it does let a little light in. Are my lights strong enough to grow lettuce etc or do I need those expensive setups that would make this small scale aquaponics setup counterproductive? You can email me if you would like toughinboots@yahoo.com or find me on facebook to chat Justin Miller Syracuce NE. I will check this too. Please offer some advice.

Do you want to post some pictures for us? We're only guessing unless we see the photos.

I'm guessing the lighting isn't up to scratch, it's usually where the indoor systems run into trouble. I don't think the 10k lumen bulbs did much at all, the plants need a certain amount of penetration into the plant cells for the lights to work. The newer ones you put on yesterday should show a difference, but you might need to give it a few weeks to get going properly.

Have a read through some of the indoor hydroponic websites, they've got lighting down to a fine art. Most of the BYAP on here are outdoors, so we don't have masses of information on lighting.

Wow you have put a lot of work into yours. I will post some pics tomorrow when the lights are on. I did read up on some info. I know these aren't technically grow lights but I don't have a lot of funds to work with so I was giving it a try first. Thanks for responding to me.

There is a fair chunk of research put into hydro lighting. Different light spectrums, different amounts of lumens, light penetration into the cells.

With the possible exception of a trial hydro setup from GE, none of them really match up to the sun.

Can you move it outside?

Not sure i could right now. fall is appraoching too fast.maybe next spring i could put a small greenhouse on south side of house and incorporate it in. Trying to attach pics but i am having problems says file is too big. I will keep trying though

Download a program that resizes the pictures. I like google picasa. But there are plenty of others.

I'm lucky here with our weather, I can keep it happily outside all winter.

Hi Justin, you may be at a similar latitude to Bright agrotech in Laramie Wyoming?

If so, they have a heated double skinned greenhouse.

pictures need to be compressed to 720x560 max

Hopefully somebody can help with the lights, but I guess they will be expensive.

I've had this conversation many times on AP forums over the last 4 or 5 years, with most people not willing to hear the advice given... so much so that I stopped contributing to lighting threads, but here goes... IMO you need a 400w Metal Halide (MH) or High Pressure Sodium (HPS) as a MINIMUM over the GB area you have. Myself, I would (and do) use a 600w over a 4ft x 4ft area.

If you want to stick with Fluoro tubes, then I would suggest, as a MINIMUM, 2 x 4ft High Output (HO) T5 lamps over each of your 2ft x 4ft GB's. One in 2700-3000k, the other around 6400k. This set-up would be okay for small leafy greens, such as fancy lettuce, smaller herbs etc, but insufficient for larger greens and fruiting plants. If growing only leafy greens, then all 6400k globes would be acceptable.

If you want to grow larger leafy greens, such Bok-choy, Spinach, hearting lettuce, Celery etc, or fruiting plants such as Capsicums, Chillies, Egg plant, Tomatoes etc... then 4 x 4ft HO T5's per 2ft x 4ft GB, in a mixture of 2700-3000k and 6400k spectrums. The greens would grow well under this set-up, but the fruiting plants may still struggle to produce well. Plus at 54w each, 8 of these would take the power consumption to more than that of a 400w HID light (MH or HPS).

From what I can gather, most indoor AP growers from the US, Canada, Europe etc, grow indoors because of the cold winters, so the extra heat HID lighting will provide, compared to Fluoro's, would also desirable.

My indoor IBC display system has a 600w MH over it, running through a 600w digital ballast, currently set to 75%, or about 450w. When the warmer weather hits and I can put in some fruiting plants, such as Capsicum or Chillies etc (I don't even bother with Tomatoes indoors), then I'll crank it up to 100% (600w).

In saying that, when cranked to 600w I get good results with Chillies, but the Capsicums (Peppers) still struggle to produce fruit, so I probably won’t plant any in the indoor system this Spring.

One pic below shows the first Capsicum produced by the one plant I put in last spring. It set a number of fruit, but the rest became unviable and dropped off when only small. It wasn't until I harvested this one that the plant actually held another couple, but they didn't get as large as this one.

Another pic shows the sort of growth I get from leafy greens when running the light at 75%, or 450w.

Plus two pics of different Chillies, one a Black Pearl, the other of a Thai Birdseye Chilli, which if you look closely, was covered in hundreds of Chillies, this was with the light set to 600w

Here's the other Chilli plant... couldn't upload with last post.

Im concerned about the electricity used on non florescent lights like the metal halide lights. 600 w would make a good jump in electric bill right? How long do you run your lights each day? Mine are on a timer for 13 hours a day. The funny thing is my mint plants are growing like a weed... have you ever tried to hook lights up to solar power? I have been tossing that idea around but not sure how much i would need for solar power or if it would even be cost effective. Think i would need to have a lot of lettuce and veggies growingvto make it worth the cost. Not sure though. A person on craigslist here has a hydroponic setup for sale with several of the sunblaster 6400k bulbs. What do you know of those?

How far above plants should my lights be? I have read 4" to about a foot. So i have been adjusting the light to find the right spot but mine doesnt seem to matter

Thats some serious power use there Mr Damage.

have you tried any of the LED grow lamps?

Tax man helps pay for it, so no biggie!

I have used LED's before, in fact I was the first shop in WA to get them in. It was a few years and a number LED generations back. I imported quite a few sets from the US, of what at the time were regarded as the premium grow LED's on the market, and developed in conjunction with NASA, or so the story goes... and they weren't worth a pinch of goat sh!t. For an array to cover a 1m2 grow area I needed to sell them at $2400... and their performance was not even remotely close to the manufacturers claims. I still have one set, which I use for raising veggie seedlings, because that's all they are good for... the most expensive seedling lights on the planet.

The prices have come down a fair bit in the last few years, and the performance has increased dramatically. I have a number of customers that have bought everything from the cheap eBay/Chinese crap, through to the top shelf US brands. The only ones they are having any success with are the top shelf US brands. They are getting around the same growth and yields as HID's in the same area, with around 50-60% of the wattage of a HID, so not as much power saving as people think/claim.

As an example, I can sell a top quality 600w magnetic ballast light kit for $300, but the US brand LED kits for the same area (up to 4ft square) run around 300-350w and will set you back about $900 imported yourself, or $1100-$1200 if bought through a store here in Oz.

I run the light over the display system for 12 hours per day, but it’s next to a window and gets about 4 hours of indirect sunlight in the mornings before the lights come on at 11am, not that it would do much, but at least the plants are awake and ticking over when the light comes on. I only run my lights like this so the shop showroom is lit up until 11pm.

Never tried solar power for lighting, it would need to be a substantial system with a very large battery bank… and they’re the expensive part of a solar system.

I know nothing of the Sunblaster brand of bulbs, I’ve never heard of them. We have very little to do with Fluoro’s through the shop these days. We only sell 2ft and 4ft Grolux T8’s just for raising seedlings/clones, and the 125w or 130w Compact Fluoro’s for doing the same and growing plants on to about 12”

For T8 and standard T5 fluoro tubes, anywhere between about 2”- 8”… and 2”- 12” for the T5 HO’s

Here are some of my pics. Sorry if they are too small or hard to see. I took pics last night about 11 pm and the lights were off on setup. Please let me know what you think/suggest. I have no issues getting stuff to sprout. Lettuce has sprouted in less than 48 hours.... Its just getting it past the 4" mark I have the struggle with.