A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

winterizing our greenhouse creates more questions....

Hello Everyone,

I've been poking around the forums when I get the chance, and with the weather literally blowing in I was scrambling to finish up a few projects and just finished building a water heater for the Ibc this evening. So tomorrow it will get added to the mix, and then I will be needing a few answers...

we have three grow beds filled with hydroton over gravel and still are producing snap peas, chard, green beans & a few strawberries.

Does anybody know how long it will take to get my bacteria in the grow beds to bounce back when the water finally starts warming up? after I reach my desired water temp,(65* this is approximate) will I need to look out for anything?

We have a seed starting area in the greenhouse, So with warmer grow beds will we be able to start seeds that grow in different seasons? I was unable to successfully transplant new seedlings into cold grow bed media what first survived was eaten by the hoards of little gnats/

also looking for suggestions on how to get rid of little slugs.

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Permalink Reply by Jeremiah Robinson on December 27, 2013 at 5:42pm

Depends on lots of factors. How cold did the water get? Did you have fish the whole time? How much surface area is there? If the system was running really well before and the temperature stayed above 40, I bet they'll bounce back quick.

No ideas about slugs. Harbor Freight sells flame throwers :)

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Permalink Reply by mark gordon on December 30, 2013 at 8:36pm

hi everyone,

its new years eve....and still cold. my system crashed during the first week of December, I was doing everything that I thought would help keep it going, alas the two week super cold spell that was it for me this year. I was able to get my new built water heater in and working, but I had a visit from a raccoon and he created his own door, which with the wind chill, helped me freeze all my plants. So from the 9th of December, we pulled all the frozen plants, shut down the lights and heaters. Just for experience I left the water heater on and the sump pump, So here we are three weeks later, Fish are still alive, and water temp in ibc is holding around 40-45* my rainbow chard seems to have thawed and is still growing a little, a few seedlings that I missed are also still alive, the water heater took about ten days to heat up to a good temp, but then without any plants, it seemed pointless to continue heating the system, So I am just keeping the water close to 50* until I decide what are next growing season will start. We just had a new grandson on Christmas day! so gardening is on hold. I ordered some new seeds, and will be starting a seeding area in my hobby shop, hopefully by end of January. I am thinking of modifying our greenhouse frame for next winter, so everyone keep posting ideas and maybe I"ll reach out to you.