Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Sweet thread JG. I have recently just set up my first AP system...
I have a small indoor system 2:1 grow bed to fishtank ratio - CHIFT PIST with a 55L tote housing 4 Australian redclaw (cherax quadricarinatus) crayfish. Im wondering what photo period you use for your lights... are you running a 12 12 day light period... do you have your spring and fall blooming plants separated and running on different timers? just curious on how you run your photo period to get flowering as soon as the plants are ready

Update time! I have clear cut the middle shelf and made some cuttings of my plants which i wish to save. These have been dipped in an extremely concentrated mix of neem oil and then set in fresh peat mixed with fish dung from my filter bags. Also, the cherry tomatoes are ripening up finally :-) ! I've been using all the spider mite infested greenery as fish food, so no waste :-) Harvested my carrots! They were super yum!

The sour grass i.e. wood sorrel is starting to recover from being cut and neem dipped too! You can see how much damage the neem originally did it the foliage. It's recovering anyway. There's lots of new foliage starting at the top.

Thanks sciguy, and thanks for the honor of being your first post! I am using a 12/12 cycle with a little extra sun coming through the window about mid day. Almost none of my crops are seasonal except for temperature considerations. My systems air temp stays around 75F all day so that's not a problem either. It does seem you can help things flower by having the right balance of light frequencies. I am using on each shelf 70% 6500k bulbs and 30% 2700k bulbs. This combined with a little natural light through the window seems to make the tomatoes and strawberries flower and fruit just fine. I'm using 1650 lumens per square foot for the results you see in the picture.

Thanks for all the info JG. I haven never grown anything under grow lights. Does it help with seedlings. I have to put my seedlings on the windowsill which doesn't get enough sun. If I leave them outside they either get fried by a harsh sun or smashed by heavy rain.

Regards, Martin.

You can definitely start great looking seedlings inside with the right lighting. The cheap seed starter trays work great for that if you want to transplant most things. I'm using coil bulbs 23 watts, they were on sale for $1 each, usually about $4 ea so yahoo! I like using the cfl's because you can easily tailor the mix of light frequencies to your taste/needs. I've used the do it yourself fixtures which only cost about $3 each installed if you do it yourself. DON'T DO IT YOURSELF UNLESS YOUR AN ELECTRICIAN! (that's a disclaimer). I've got 10 fixtures per shelf which gives me 230 Watts making 16000 lumens. Not to shabby for $40 including bulbs! Rule of thumb I've been using is about 1 bulb per square foot at 23 Watts each. Also I'm using reflectors to enclose the grow area and greatly boost light to leaf. There is a dedicated fan for each shelf too. This helps in 2 ways. It keeps the bulbs cooler and constantly moves the seedlings around helping to toughen them up. Hope this helps!

Here's a picture of a fixture I put together for my old system to give you some ideas.

This is a micro ap system I'm setting up for my sons preschool. It has 20 grow sites with 2" net cups. It will be a constant flood, rapid flow system. Total prodject cost = $92.00 (us). What the kids well learn = priceless!

That's what I needed, thanks JG.

Oh! Stats! 10 gallon FT/ 10 gallon grow bed. No sump required. An under gravel filter tray will be used as the primary filter with a 170gph power head driving it all. It will be planted up with 10 kinds of lettuce, 5 kinds of spinach and 5 kinds of radishes! All with harvest cycles of 30-35 days so the kids will see rapid results!

Martin, glad I could be helpful!

I'm running a 600 watt hps hid so I don't think lumens are an issue... My question was more pertaining to your vegetables that happen to be long day or short day flowering plants... So based on the season the season they flower in the wild .. Plants will flower when their day period is longer than their dark period..and vice versa. I think the day length has a lot more to do with flowering than the color temperature... Although you don't want to flower with blue lights .. You can grow veg with red. Long winded and probably not new info sry. But if your plants happen to be long day plants... (Thinking out loud) It would be best to group those and run them maybe 16 17 or 18 hours a day (minding temp) and your short day plants run at 12 12. Just to optimize growth... Idk. Your set up is sweet. Where u at?

Light frequency and duration I know play a factor in the flowering of certain plants but my system is not really tuned for plants which need to flower for food production, so I haven't spent allot of time learning the specifics. I wish I could give you good advice but I'm not the authority. Maybe someone can chime in and help out? I also know that air temperature has allot to do with flowering. If my system gets to hot the leafy greens can go to flower prematurely. The same can be true for radishes and onions I believe. Probably your best bet is to try to mimic the flowering seasons conditions as best as possible if you want to trigger flowering a little earlier.

Oh and thanks. I'm in southeast Michigan. Where u at?

Today I installed the micro system at my sons preschool. The class was in session during the install so I got to field lots of bizarre questions. "hey, um, I have a question to tell you" says a little blond kid "Um, did you know that fish always die in aquariums? You can tell because they stop taking"... Awkward silence "Well thanks for telling me that :-)" .The kids were fascinated by just seeing it going together. About half the kids asked me where the fish were (cycling for a few days, so no fish yet). All the plumbing is hooked up and running and net pots are seeded. I'll be putting in the fish and hooking up lights on Friday. Here's what it looks like now I wrote out in a grid everything that was planted so the teachers have a way to tell what I planted for them. Everything should harvest really fast which will be good for the kids to see results quickly.

That is really cool JG, good work buddy.