Bedroomponics finally up and running

[WAbedroomponics]

I have not been on in a while because of other things in my life but i finally have set up a "mini" system in my room. I have a 10 gallon fish tank, 50 gph pump, heater, small grow bed, and a light. The fish are "fancy" guppies 2 males and 4 females. i have basil and heirloom tamatoes growing. I am using guppies because they breed fast and my high school aquaponics class wanted to explore the option of using fish that would require a smaller tank then tillapia so more students could join the class. So this is the begainning of breeding the guppies to give to the school for their systems. I have pictures that probaly seem like very little but since i am a high school kid who had to work as hard as my coiuld to peice this system together for under $30 i am hapy as i can be. :D

[rfeiller]

good for you!

by the way the best aquatic plant as a water quality indicator for guppies is water sprite. it can be grown submersed or floating, the leaves produce young plants which are marketable to the pet industry. great fish for genetic experiments, because of being able to reproduce at a very young age it is easy to chart out the F1, F2 etc. progeny. one impregnation for a female can equate to 4 fry droppings or litters. if you play with genetics the females have to be seperated at a couple of weeks from the males. Gregor Mendal will be proud!

guppies known as the millions fish, when actually most fish will outproduce them. KOI several hundred thousand at a spawning, discus a couple hundred every 6-10 days, etc; while the lowly guppy produces about 20 fry every 21-28 days.

sorry i digressed, raised a lot of show guppies for show and sales. in '67-'68 they brought $5 each wholesale, beats lettuce :D I have not been able to find any show quality guppies for years, because of the asian fish factories.

use to feed custom foods of 75% protein, now that would generate some nitrates for you!

your project is terrrific. good luck with it.

[urbanfarmer]

Keep up the good work! You will make a great scientist one day! :-)

[WAbedroomponics]

Thank you soo much :) I am currently using an 18" natural daylight bulb that came with the fish tank hood when i got it. I was wondering if replacing it with some other light might make my plants have better color and make them grow faster? they just seem yellow compared to my plants at school which are in a green house. if so what lights would you suggest? thanks for your help :) i have some Civil air Patrol buds that want to by some for feeder fish and my teacher wants to buy some for her class next year so i think im gonna get a 50 gallon tank my girlfriend's mom is thinking of throwing out and i probaly already have enough guppies lol for them to breed like aquatic rabbits :)

[urbanfarmer]

If you lower the light a lot closer to the plants, the plants will get more energy to grow.

[WAbedroomponics]

so keep it close but not so close the plants get to hot?

[keith_r]

lookin good! you might want to increase the depth of your growbed though

if you can get the light to within a couple inches of the top of the plants (and raise it as required) they'll grow fine with that light.. the flourescent won't get the plants to warm

[WAbedroomponics]

By increase growbed depth do you mean add more sand and gravel or do you mean i should use a grow bed with higher sides?

[keith_r]

add more gravel to your existing growbed, when you fill the growbed, the water should come to about an inch below the surface
sand isn't a very good medium for the gb's

[WAbedroomponics]

wow i really dont have enough gravel. thank you for the help

[jackalope]

Way to go! Keep up the good work. Guppies are a very hardy fish (except in Montana in the Winter time --- I've killed a few hundred this past Winter) :lol: But they can surely provide you with a lot of ferts for your AP system! Sometimes, the fry will get pumped into the GBs, but I just leave 'em alone until they are big enough to catch .... they either live or die, and if they die, they provide more ferts for the system :!:

[WAbedroomponics]

lol i caught 15 fry that were in my grow bed took for ever but after i put mesh over the pump they no longer got trapped but im not sure if darwin would be happy that i saved them lol since i run my breeding tank with a survival of the fittest mind set it feels wrong to save the dumb lol..... i was wondering if normal fish tank gravel would affect the growth of the plants in my grow bed any thoughts?

[rfeiller]

Typical aquarium gravel is too fine and loads up with organics, the gravel should all be in the 5/8" to 3/4" size to allow the oxygen to get to the roots

[urbanfarmer]

I use 3/4" gravel and it works great.

[WAbedroomponics]

I added more gravel and changed grow beds plus i weeded out the plants that were sick and weak and to top it all off i have a bell pepper plant now :D

[TripFont]

Great pics and a very helpful launching point for my own project. Thanks, WAbed!