Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everybody, I just heard about aquaponics a month ago and i have been doing a lot of research and I'm really excited to build my first system. I live in Michigan and the winters can be really harsh and I would like to do aquaponics year round so I'm considering setting up my system in my garage instead of putting it outside an shutting it down during the winters. I was wondering if anybody else has a system indoors,what size they are doing, and what type of extra cost they in countered. I would like to set up a IBC tote system with fish tank, three grow beds with flood and drain watering, with interconnected sumps located under the grow beds, and possibly some strawberry towers. I know I'm jumping in with both feet, but I'm more planning for the future more then the emidiate start up. I know I'm going to have to invest in some grow lights, timers, some type of reflective material, and prob. an inline water heater. I was hoping that I could get some more input on anything else that I need to be aware of so I can I decide if it's worth putting my system indoors or the heating cost will be so high that an indoor system won't be cost affective.

Thanks this is a really great forum and I have already learned a lot.

Hiya..

Greeting.. I'm glad you Dropped in and I hope I don't get you to confused..
I'll put in my 2c's worth in now and other who actually have indoor system can help out..

One thing is What are you going to do for a Light source for the plant's..
So you will need some form of light source, either natural or artificial..
Natural is Good it is Free.. or you have to pay for Artificial..

Could you have a System, where the tank is indoors and a number of Grow beds where outside.. and some grow-beds inside..

--> Electricity for Light's..

Heating of the area.. If you can isolate the fish tank from the Cold Ground and try to keep a small heater or even pipe the air from the house thru the area you can in some cases keep the cost of heating to a minimum..
- On a side Note.. I have been talking to a friend in Oregon who live in an area where they get snow and he has his ponds under a new sun-room roof and he has a slight issue he wants to start to winter his fish and the temperature is taking it time to drop under mid 60 degree F...

So is a sun-room a viable fix for your Issue/area..?


Hmm Moisture..?

You actually have hit some of the main Issue..

Juergen

Thanks, I don't have a sun room or any room in my house that would work for what I had in mind. I have just finished my garage and it is insulated, dry walled, and has a heater in there, which should let me keep the temp were I need it to be. I also plan on using some type of foam on the gerage doors to help them retain heat better. I do plan on using some type of artificial lighting for the plants. I was also wondering if I could use some type of reflective material to make a smaller grow area around the grow beds that would stay at a higher temp. then the rest of the gerage. I may be wrong in the way I'm planning on this working but if I could use the gerage heater to keep the main area say at 55 deg. Then the heat frome the grow lights (which would be on a timer) would keep the smaller grow room at a high enough of a temp for the vegetables I'm growing. Has anybody tried this in winter or has another ideas for heating the grow bed area more efficiently?

Hi BB,

This first link is to a thread about growing indoors in BC, Canada. It's quite a long thread but it's an interesting read in most parts. It starts out with a small indoor system, then the owner constructs an IBC system indoors, with all it's trials and tribulations. It then goes on to talk about filtration and then indoor grow lighting towards the end of the thread.

http://www.aquaponics.net.au/forum/showthread.php?t=1329

The next two threads are much shorter and focus specifically on indoor grow lighting.

http://www.aquaponics.net.au/forum/showthread.php?t=3507&highlight=lightin
http://www.aquaponics.net.au/forum/showthread.php?t=2397&highlight=lighting

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

i'm in northeast ohio, going into my second winter with AP,,, i moved my ft and gb's into my basement last fall and they've stayed there... i'm only using t8 flourescent lights, but i've had great growth on all kinds of greens, cuttings and seeds.. finally got a brocholli started..
water is getting to be about 64 in my big tank, minnows and crays are doing fine in there, after my gb's are online, i'll have yellow perch and bluegill in the big tank..
some good places to get fish in MI! - i viste dearborn/detroit a couple times a year..
good luck, and take lots of pic's

Hi BigBlue;
There are a fair number of us doing AP along the norther tier now (I'm in Minnesota). What other AP sites like Growing Power have you studied? It'd be easier to give advice if I knew where you were coming from, research wise.

Thanks everybody.

Swanberg, Wright now I am on research overload! There is so much good info. out there that I am having trouble coming through everything and coming up with good way to get started. I also just finished up my final exams for the semester and actually have some time for some pleasure research. For lighting I am thinking about using some 400 W HPS grow lights, they seem to have the most bang for my buck, unless anybody has can talk me out of it.

Also I was wondering about the CHIFT PIST system if the pump were to malfunction, would there be an issue of to much water draining out of the FT? The way I think it works is all the weight of the water in the FT would force water up the pipe and into the GB. But, if the pump malfunctions then how much water would continue to flow into the GB and would this be dangerous for the fish.

This is prob. a dumb Qs and it is prob. answered somewhere else pretty thoroughly but like i said there is so much info out there and its taking me a little bit to come through it all. Hell I feel like I need to make flash cards to keep all the acronyms straight...

i have one 400w hps, but shut it off after seeing what t8's could do..
i might use it on one bed in the futured,, we'll see

Naw, it's very safe. Constant Height In Fish Tank means just that. What you describe is a siphon, we will not let you create a siphon in your fish tank!!

Rick

CHIFT means - constants hieght in fish tank. So if water stops flowing to the fish tank, it will stay full. Your description of how it works is correct, but it's the force of EXTRA water that forces existing water out. If you stop adding extra water (pump dies), no more FT water will bed displaced and the FT stays full.

What you do have to watch out for is dissolved oxygen. If the flow of water is the only thing adding oxygen to the water, your fish won't last too long (how long depends on stocking level, water quality, etc.). So definitely, have some air pumps in the FT, as a backup!

Thanks kthignigh24 and sminfiddle. I believe it's safe, I guess I'm having trouble understanding the mechanics of it. From the setups I have seen the pipe leading to the GB draws water from the bottom of the FT, I guess I'm wondering how do you set the level of the FT? Does it have to do with the height of the FT to the GB or some other type of gravity feed?

Also when deciding on what size pump to get do you want a pump that will move the amount of water in the FT alone or do you include the ST and GB into this figure to? I found conflicting information on this so I was hoping I could get some body else to way in.

you want the volume of the fishtank to turn over at least once an hour..

Okay. My IBCs are plumbed from the bottom. Now this would drain the whole FT if the water stopped, right? Well to stop that, the pipe come out from the bottom of the FT and then turns up and comes to the top of the fish tank (external to the tank), then goes back down and on it's way. This way the pipe pulls from the bottom of the fish tank... but only if the fish tank gets up to a certain height. Maybe try it w/ a plastic container and a straw or something if it's not making sense.

Hi big blue, in regards to reflective material you can buy plastic with white on one side and black on the other from most hydroponic shops, but flat white paint is by far the best reflector of light


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I was young and stupid, im not so young now