Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Here's a few picture updates on how the system is going. Plants are looking good (please correct me if you see otherwise here). The ones I sprinkled directly into the GB are coming up in a random fashion but all are looking good. I will have to thin them out of course in the coming weeks. Carrots on the far left and cucumber and tomatoes one the right. All water levels are still looking good in my opinion.

I'll be going to the store today and pick up a reflective blanket to surround my lights so that the temperature and light will increase for the plants.

Hopefully the lettuce and basil will grow large enough by the end of the week so that they can be transplanted into the raft tank.

Let me know what you think. Thank you,


-Tyler

Water values are looking spot on. The tomatoes look very elongated and I doubt you have sufficient light.

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Yes I think you're for sure correct. They have only been in full light for one day so I hoping by hangin up reflective material and lower the light to a reasonable level they'll show some healthier change by the end of the week. Has the damage been done or is there an ability for the plants to recover?

Here is my first attempt at increasing the light and heat intensity for my plants. Hopefully it will be sufficient. If not more lighting may be needed.







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The long stem will not become shorter, but if light intensity increases the next internode (part between 2 leaves) will be shorter, so if the light intensity is better the new growth should show this. If you plant the elongated seedlings very deep your problem is also fixed.

The reflective material looks good, it should increase the light intensity. Most lamps shine their light in an angle of about 120 degrees, so this should definetly cut light losses.

I must admit I havent taped my reflective blankets to the walls yet, but looking at those pictures made me bring out the ducttape!

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In reality I'm just trying to see how much nonsense I can get away with before my wife kills me. I'm pushing the envelope no doubt.

The second internode has begun to form on a few cucumber and tomato plants, so I should know it its working within the next week. I will probably take some time this weekend and prune the GB. I'll arrange the plants to give them the most room possible and be sure not to overload the GB.

Has anyone ever attempted to send cucumber plants vertical?

-Tyler

Haha, I have a spare bedroom turned vertical farm and as long as I keep all my stuff in there my girlfriend is okay with it. Lucky me.

I remember my grandfather grew cucumbers vertical in his greenhouse, without any problems. But really throw the cucumbers out of the GB, they will mess everything up. They will end up overgrowing your whole GB as they become massive. Plus their strings to attach themself will stick to all your plants and actually pull them out of the GB. Last but not least, male and female flowers mature with a difference of about 2 weeks, so its very difficult to polinate them. If I was you I would start with basil/parsley/lettuce, so more leafy greens.

All this hate towards the cucumber stems from my own problems I have with them. Theyve over grown everything, but I cannot pull them out because they probably use the most nitrogen and my nitrate is already high.. I wish I had just started my system with lettuce and herbs.


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Thank you very much for the feedback and helpful input. I agree a cucumber plant will easily swallow my GB. Especially now that I've been reminded on the size of a fully grown plant. I also agree that it is by far the biggest contributor in nitrogen usage. I'm certain my levels would drastically increase if I take them out.

I will probably weed out all the cucumber plants and leave one (it's my wife's favorite). I know this is probably not ideal, but I have to give it a try for her sake. Additionally I will leave 2 tomato plants and 3 carrots on the top GB.

It looks like I will have 3-4 lettuce plants and 2-3 basil plants for the raft. I look to being able to add them come this weekend. I won't weed out other plants until I have the ones in the raft contributing to water filtering. Hopefully my levels will remain in their current ballpark.

-Tyler

I have all my plants in the system now. My lettuce and basil plants are very fragile and small currently. I have similar height plants in the top GB. With that being said and with my new reflective set-up how long should I have the lights on daily? Also does it work better to have one long period of light or is it okay to break the light time into halves.

-Tyler

Any change in plants since you changed light? I'm going to use greenhouse tarp and get some natural light but am curious about lighting for future purposes.

I would run the light for about 14 hours a day continuously. Keep the lighting hours steady, else you may induce flowering.

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Chris,

I've seen little change in my plant growth in the past few days to a week. Last night I moved both lights much closer to the plants. I have been running them for 8 hours a day in two four hour periods. It seems like that was not the right idea for healthy plant growth. I think this is a light issue because my nitrite and pH levels are spot on for a healthy growing environment.

I'll be away this weekend for Labor Day but will change my light time to one long period. I'll probably increase it to 10 hours for the weekend and then increase it to 14 (as recommended by Seppeo) when I get back. If there is not a drastic bump in plant growth by the end of next week I'm going to buy four new T12 bulbs (which is probably half the reason, my bulbs have at least 10 months of cyclic on time on them).

I should be able to post picture updates next week after I get home. I'm hoping for the best.

-Tyler

Sorry for my two week hiatus. Here's an update on my system as of last night. Plants are definitely growing but very slowly. They are now receiving 12.5 hours of light a day and I have installed the reflective material to increase the light and heat. The water levels are great, no ammonia and nitrites but at least 40 ppm of nitrates. I feel like the plants have sufficient nutrients but am not convinced because of their growth. My lettuce and basil plants are slowly growing as well. The lettuce leaves are starting to turn yellow and look fragile. What could be causing this? The fish are healthy. I still have my 7 original goldfish.

I feel overall the system is getting there, but I am still experiencing some problems with plant growth. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Thanks for the help,

Tyler

Looks like it might be an iron deficiency.

I believed it was some kind of deficiency, I just was unsure as to what. I added some mineral dust last night as I was taking these pictures that I had used on a prior system to help out with similar issues.

I weary of using this often though because it tends to stop up systems. What would you recommend to fix this issue? is seaweed extract goo to use in this situation or is there a easier solution.

I have also thought about adding worms to my GB is that a wise move? Will it do more good than bad at this stage of my system?

Thanks,

Tyler