Fighting food prices and inflation, with my new aquaponics systems

[Edward Pozek]

Hey all, hope you had a peaceful weekend. I'm new to the forum but I wanted to give you an update to what I've been doing to try to fight this inflation and rising food costs. I've been interested in aquaponics for about four years, things work out funny and now I have the opportunity to really do something that matters and that's help cut the costs of these crazy food prices. It was an easy sell after seeing the systems in Florida, but we're also realistic about results. We got to work on three systems, two of which we have recently finished. I created a facebook fan page if you want to follow my progress: HD Aquaponics Facebook Fan Page

I also wanted to post some images for you to look at. I will post more of the greenhouse system soon.

Outdoor:

Indoor:

HD Aquaponics Facebook Fan Page

HD Aquaponics Youtube Channel

[Susie Gehri]

Great Photos Edward!  Tell me more about "growing indoors".  To save cost on purchasing an expensive greenhouse, I've switched ideas to maybe doing grow lights in our garage for our aquaponics system.  What do you do with the lights when your plants get 3' tall (or more)?  If you raise the lights will they still give off enough light from that height?  How does one know what type of lights, how much etc to use?  I've tried to research this, but not going very well...then I found YOU! 

[AJ Grottke]

Susie, there is a artificial lighting group that could help you with your lighting questions if you want more info :)

[Susie Gehri]

Oh thats great!  How do I get in touch with them?  Thanks!

 

[AJ Grottke]

Click on the groups tab, on the top of the page.  Then find artificial lighting, click the button to become a member . Then start a discussion or add to a precious discussion if there is a topic similar to yours.  I think that the group would be a better place to chat about lighitng specific to your situation.

[Edward Pozek]

Susie, I'm sorry this took so long :(

Alright so as the above member commented, I've joined the lighting group and I recommend you do the same. Looks like they're they have some info on HPS lights there too which I will be my upgrade down the line. But I also wanted to show you what I'm doing as far as lighting my grow room for the plants.

 

Here we will take a look at grow bed #2, you can see in the pic that the light is only about 3-4" above the plant. With flourecent lights, this seems to be the "Goldilocks zone" for the plants when working with these systems. You can tell in the pic that the bulbs are two different colors. We are using a 6500k (blue) for "vegging" the plants or making them grow. We also have 3000k (red) for flowering and hopefully help grow some nice fruit. 

 

In this pic you can see my (awesomely) tall tomato plants (12"-16") and the lights that have been, for this presentation, moved to about halfway up the uprights. My morning routine is feed the fish, coffee and then see if I need to raise the lights any because of new growth on which ever plants. This morning I noticed my tomatos were growing into the light so I just simple raised the height of my light about an inch. That way they are getting the light they need but also making sure I'm not stealing too much light from the plants on the other side. Hint* There is nothing that says you can't keep your fixtures tilted from side to side if you have plants taller on one side of your grow bed.

 

In this picture you can see the remaining height that I still have on my lights. I really doubt things will reach 8' tall but, hey you never know. You can also see how we attached the light fixtures to a plastic covered wire that is ran through an eye-bolt for easy lowering. 

 

The key with my system is the height. Being able to control the lights since I can't really control the size of the plants is what I hope will give me a little more control over the whole system.

 

Susie, I really hope this helped and I would be happy to field any more questions you may have. If I don't have the answer, I'm sure someone in the lighting group will.

 

Also, I wanted to show you an older video of the system before they were put together, that way you can see the single grow bed and upright. You can get a better idea of what I did with this: 

 

Susie Gehri said:

Great Photos Edward!  Tell me more about "growing indoors".  To save cost on purchasing an expensive greenhouse, I've switched ideas to maybe doing grow lights in our garage for our aquaponics system.  What do you do with the lights when your plants get 3' tall (or more)?  If you raise the lights will they still give off enough light from that height?  How does one know what type of lights, how much etc to use?  I've tried to research this, but not going very well...then I found YOU! 

[David Waite]

Nice clean design. Great job.

[Edward Pozek]

Forgot the Facebook fan page: http://goo.gl/5ayL0

The youtube channel: http://goo.gl/1AjgH

[Susie Gehri]

Oh you are amazing!~  I'm embarrassed to say, I found a great deal on greenhouse today and went ahead and bought it. Still may install lights tho in it.... Thank you soooo much for all your time and effort in sharing this with me!!!

[Edward Pozek]

Hey that's great!! Greenhouses are exciting. What kind did you get??

Susie Gehri said:

Oh you are amazing!~  I'm embarrassed to say, I found a great deal on greenhouse today and went ahead and bought it. Still may install lights tho in it.... Thank you soooo much for all your time and effort in sharing this with me!!!

[Susie Gehri]

Thanks AJ!!

AJ Grottke said:

Click on the groups tab, on the top of the page.  Then find artificial lighting, click the button to become a member . Then start a discussion or add to a precious discussion if there is a topic similar to yours.  I think that the group would be a better place to chat about lighitng specific to your situation.