what kind of lighting do Fish need?

[Deorge]

Tilapia or Pike. Can you just stick them in the basement with minimal to no regular light?

[organicusrex]

I'm in the same boat with you Deorge. Making a decision as to what kind or variety of fish to raise is a daunting task. Then suiting the breed to your environmental challenges.

I've seen a link in here somewhere that shows a commercial operation and the plants are floating on bead board rafts in the fish tanks. This has to be limiting the light exposure of those fish dramatically. The question is what breed of fish are in that setup?

Fish that are able to thrive in murky waters in the wild will not be affected much by low light conditions. I've raised and bred fish in aquariums for visual effect and profit. Raising fish as a food source has a different set of parameters though some similarities.

There are lots of knowledgeable people on this forum and some of them even have commercial operations. GaryD and Murray are the administrators of this site and I would say they are the resident "gurus" for Aquaponics. But don't rule out anyone here.

My list currently consists of Lake Perch, Redfin Pike, Tilapia, Smallmouth Bass, Blue Catfish, Channel Catfish, Bluegill, Redear, and I'm even considering getting an order of Jade Perch from Australia. Balancing their needs for feed, light and temperature will be the balancing act. There's a lot of threads dealing with the subject of raising fish in the Aquaponics environment on this site, all I can suggest is spend the time it takes to read as much as you can.

[Deorge]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm just pulling information together now. I've got an idea of a small scale commercial system in a major city. The only way to make that somewhat profitable is to maximize the square foot production due to cost of land in the city. So I'm attempting to see the feasibility of taking a small 2000 square foot of city land and putting a aquaponics system in place there. With fish grown on one level with minimal light and a hoop house grown on second level where the water gets pupmed up to. So that is why I"m wondering how much light the fish really need.

I'll keep scrowling through the threads but hopefully someone else explored that option and has some tips.

tx,
Deorge

[GaryD]

Hi Deorge,

Given that many fish live in turbid water that offers little light a metre below the surface, my guess is that most fish have low light requirements.

Regardless of your culture methods, it would be possible to have some light at the level of the fish in your proposed set up. It doesn't have to be direct light. It could even be artificial light.....as little as a single LED over a tank.

Gary

[Deorge]

Thanks Gary. I've been looking through this site over the last day trying to find a thread on verticle Aquaponics/farming to see other's thoughts experience with this. Couldn't find any discussions. Are you aware of a thread out there I can plug into?

Tx,
Deorge

[jack@badflas]

My experience with tilapia indicates they do much better with lots of light. I keep a shop light with daylight bulbs over my tanks.

[Jason Palenske]

Personally I just do a natural light rotation and it seems to work well.

[Deorge]

how does that work?

[organicusrex]

Regarding the vertical arrangement you have in mind. I'll assume you have a sloped lot like many in Oakland. You can pull it off as long as you have a pump capable of overcoming the amount of head, i.e., if the grow beds are 12 ft higher than the tank you'll need a pump that can overcome at least 12 ft and even better if it can overcome 15 to 20ft of head.

"Head" is the altitude difference between the lowest and highest point of your pumping needs. It's better to err in favor of more pumping power than you need so you don't overwork the pump.

Good luck with your design idea Deorge.