Thanks Lisa and Horton. Yes temps aren't going up past 65F this next week according to the forcast. Pond temp at 5 pm today was 62F. Put some pond water in the indoor tanks just to help with any differences in chemistry. It's amazing how fast things start growing with a little sunshine!

Thanks for all the advice! I now have heaters in my tank and the water is setting right at 70 degrees. I'm not sure if I'll have to turn it up farther or not. My Dad found some "plant" lights and we put those up, lowered them closer to the plants, and I increased their daylight hours to 14. We've noticed that the roots are now reaching more downward than before and fanning out all the little hairs, where as before they were kind of shrunk up and stayed on top. Any comments on that? As for the fish they love the warmer water!! They hang out around the heaters quite a bit and are a lot more active and friendly. They've been eating their fish flakes out of my hand, I'm so excited!! Oh, we also brought in some new plants but I'm not sure what they are. They started growing in our livestock tanks this Summer while we had the fish out in them. Since the tanks are going to freeze up or be drained, and I wasn't sure my other plants would survive, we brought some of these in and planted them in the gravel bottom. The fish really like them and went crazy over the algae that was growing on them.

400W sounds like about the right level. I recommend HPS for supplementing natural light. You may well find that at 45F-55F the plants are sufficiently dormant that you don't need supplementary light because they aren't growing. Under 1000W you might find things actively growing which could cause you problems. I would suggest running for 10-12 hours. I suspect the temperature may get higher than you expect, but it depends how big and how well insulated the garage is. Look for an electronic ballast if this is something you plan to do each winter, the initial cost is higher but it saves electricity (and probably gives you more flexibility of bulbs to use in the future). For a one-off winter maybe just get the cheapest ballast you can find because you probably won't make back the extra initial cost of an electronic ballast just running for three or four months. Any reflector that gets the majority of the light onto the plants is good enough. Simply placing the plants in the corner of two white walls will gain you as much light as the best reflector, but still make sure you have a reflector of some sort covering at least the top half of the bulb, there's no plants on the ceiling!

I make tartar sauce similar to Country Sunshine's, but I put chopped stuffed green olives in mine. Here is my recipe for Shrimp Gumbo. I don't measure anything, but this is the basics. 2 ribs celery 1 bell pepper 1 onion Chop and set aside. In heavy skillet or stock pot, make roux of approximately equal parts flour and oil. Bacon grease is actually best...so if you have that...use that. I'd say about 1/3 cup each or a little more. Stir without stopping over medium heat until roux is very brown, but do not burn. Don't stop stirring either. Add chopped celery, onion and bell pepper. Stir it in and turn off the heat. Transfer if using a skillet to pot or if using a stock pot, add 3 to 4 cans chicken broth. Stir until the roux is dissolved, and on low heat, add a small can of tomato sauce. You can add more or chopped tomatoes. I don't like tomato pieces in mine....so I go with the sauce. I just want it to color the gumbo. The gumbo will not have a pretty color at this stage, but will as you finish it. Bring to a boil and when the celery, onion, bell peppers are cooked done, add a bag of frozen, chopped okra. When the okra is done, add shrimp. I use a lot of shrimp...and if I have crabmeat, I put that in too. You can put in any kind of seafood. Some people put in sausage, but I don't because it over powers the flavor of the gumbo. When I don't have seafood, I use chicken. Season to taste. I use Tony Chachere's creole seasoning and thyme. Tony's is flavored salt, and I use it like salt when cooking. Do not over cook the shrimp. As soon as it turns pink, or the liquid starts to boil, turn it off. Sprinkle a liberal amount of gumbo file and stir in well. That will also change the color a little bit. Stir it well so it doesn't kind of make strings in the liquid. A handful of minced green onions is good to add now too...or parsley. Serve over hot, cooked rice. (When you make the rice, put a big lump of butter in it to give it richer flavor.) My husband shrimped for 45 years...we still have couple of shrimp boats. I have cooked hundreds of pots of gumbo and this is recipe that I have worked on over the years. You could make stock from the shrimp shells, but I have found that chicken broth gives it more flavor. It doesn't taste like chicken...so no worry there. A lot of people don't like okra because they think it is slimy. Frozen okra has been blanched...so it isn't slimy. You can use fresh okra too, and it won't be slimy but I doubt any one who doesn't eat okra would believe me...so I say use frozen.