Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Was planning on getting some bluegill. Also was interested in getting a single catfish for the bottom of each 55 gallon barrel, but i was talked out of it.

I have no idea of the temperature ranges of my plants. I HAD about 80 plants of about 10 different types, but since they have been indoors, near a window all summer long, about 1/2 are dead now.

I am trying to start some new ones, but in best conditions it seems to take about 8 weeks to grow big enough.

HEY RONMAGGI: If your fishfarm stays dormant all winter, does that mean dry, or are you pumping water around a vacant garden??

It is still pumping, and I still have tilapia. They just don't eat much, and growth is minimal.

THANKS RONMAGGI!

Tell me...

in Huntington Beach, a typical winter evening may get to 40 deg. F, with maybe a few days as low as 30 deg. F.

I have two of those blue, 55 gallon plastic barrels in my backyard that my fish will go in. Do you think Tilapia will survive? I'm guessing the water temperature will stay 3-5 degrees warmer than the stated air temperature.

I would prefer Tilapia, but I was planning to get Bluegill, cuz I think they are more cold resistant. Once I can prove to my wife this thing is real, I plan to enclose this science experiment in some kind of a green house to better weather the winters.

Now that my system PH is down to about 7.5 I have started adding baby plants. They have Nitrates for food, because of my "fish-less cycling".

55 gal barrels are a little small, which means they are more susceptible to temperature swings. Then again, it would probably take less electricity to heat them... My 300 watt heater kept the tilapia alive, but they certainly weren't vigorous.

WHAT KINDA 300 WHAT HEATER DID YOU GET


I got two of these, doesn't seem to make any difference!!!!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Submersible-110V-300W-Watt-Aquarium-Fish-Tank-Water-Heater-/141059335499?pt=Heaters_and_Chillers&hash=item20d7caa54b

If you're going to heat... get the Eheim Jaeger heaters...

Second the EJs. I tried going with cheaper 300w heaters. Forget which brand but they were total carp. I run 2 EJs in my 150gal tank now and have had zero trouble keeping the temp above 70°F in winter, in an unheated basement, with a dirt floor. Check EBay as well as around the web. You may be able to score a deal on multiple unit orders.

I'd definitely recommend going with the bluegill but you do need to make sure the temperature doesn't swing from an unseasonably warm afternoon down to a hard freeze night without some sort of protection/mitigation for the bluegill they can survive the near freezing but they can't handle the water going from over 60 F down to 30 F which is certainly possible during a fast change (at least here in FL) because I had it happen in an unprotected outdoor system with a 200 gallon fish tank once. For that reason I really recommend at least 300 gallons of fish tank for an outdoor unprotected system. Granted a 300 gallon fish tank would take more heating to keep it warm enough for tilapia but a 25-35 gallon fish tank (like a barrel cut open to be a fish tank) will be quite prone to temperature fluctuations and therefore would need careful monitoring/control of the temperature.

>>>NOW I GOTZ PLANT QUESTIONS!<<<

Well, since my PH now seems stabilized around 7.4 and I have 30ppm or so of nitrates, I gave a try at putting several of my plant starts in the NFT ports. The plant starts have been without food since March, and I have lost quite a few already!

When I first tried putting plants in a month or two ago, they died within 2 hours or so, looking very burnt and shrivelled up. Of course my system PH was about 8.6 at that time. Now that I have lowered my PH to 7.4, I tired again.

For the first two days, the couple plants I added were looking dark green and healthy, but now on the third day, several plants are starting to have that burnt and shrivelled look. Is my PH still to high? Or is the ammonia of .25 or .5 ppm for a day or two doing this?

It sounds like your weather is still warm and you are not giving the plants any water.
Pull one of your plants up and see if the roots are even wet/damp, i assume they are not.

the only way you can have plants shrivel and die in 2 hours is lack of water, and now lasting 2 days just tells me you had cooler weather.....

Still warm... So Cal has been in a heat wave. I started some lettuce indoors about a month ago, I still haven't transplanted it for fear of the heat...

Pics of the plants would probably help, along with what type of plants we're talking about. In the meantime give the new transplants some shade so they can get established (if you haven't done this). Sometimes you can tell if a leaf is overheating just by feeling it. Usually they burn on the leaf surfaces facing the sun and typically where the leaf bends. If the tips are dry and turning brown then perhaps the roots can't move the water fast enough and need more time to get established. Either way shade is the answer until they toughen up.

It's not the pH

What are you moving the plants from? Transplant shock can be enough to kill many plants if what you move them into is very harsh compared to what they came from. That is why plants that are getting moved from say a greenhouse or indoors into an outdoor garden need to be "hardened off" before planting out.

So how were the plants started and where/how were they being kept in the mean time and what procedure are you using to place them into the system.

I've usually found that moving plants into my aquaponics system means I can be rather rough and they still recover fairly well but that is usually putting them into flood and drain media beds with mild water temperature. When I place new seedlings into Raft beds, I need to place them out in the raft bed either very early in the morning so they can get settled in before the sun hits them or more often I will wait till evening when the sun is no longer directly hitting that part of the raft bed and the seedlings can have all night to recover before the direct sun will hit them. If the plants are in towers or NFT of some sort where the roots might not be getting enough water or the water dripping through might be getting HOT or depleted of oxygen or both, that can kill plants too.

I find it crazy that the aeroponic tower gardens sell so well down here because most of the ones I see, the plants are just languishing due to the temperatures A small black reservoir does not make for a stable cool plant appropriate temperature in my climate and water trickling down in small portions through a tower tends to heat up a lot!

If the roots of the plants in the system are dry, that is no good, if they are going black and slimy that is also not good (heat and lack of dissolved oxygen can quickly make for the black or dark slimy situation.)

I've taken rafts of lettuce to market and I know others who have and not had aeration for the water the living lettuce was kept in during the day at market and one full day of warm water with no aeration can render the plants no longer living enough to put back in the system at the end of the day. Some means of aeration or cooling the water or both needs to be worked out. Three days of warm wet but not aerated roots usually gives a rotten lettuce smell. You guessed it I have tried several ways of possibly setting up living lettuce displays, they all need some circulation and aeration.

Even plants that like HOT weather usually prefer their root zones be a bit cooler during the extreme heat of the day. They only appreciate root zone heating during cold weather.

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