Growing, Growing, Growing

Just a quick Aquaponics update:

Everything is growing well and the fish are thriving.  The color in the pictures is weird because the artificial lights have a yellow/red cast,  I tried to correct it in Photoshop to little avail, so you will have to trust that these plants are actually normal green colors.

The red bell pepper is already starting to set flowers and even fruit 36 days after transplanting into system from 4" starter:

We've been eating fresh salad greens (clipping a few leaves off each plant) every day and I'm still having a hard time keeping up with the growth rate on them.

Patty Pan squash is also starting to set fruit, although none the flowers have actually bloomed yet.

Some of the basil leaves look strange with lighter colored areas between the leaf veins, not sure of the exact cause, but the pH and other water chemistry has been changing rapidly since start-up so this is not surprising.  I hope the next batch looks better, however, it all tastes great, very strong, delicious basil flavor.  We have been using it as well as the sage and thyme for cooking the last few weeks.

 And finally the fish appear to be thriving.   We now have about 20 1.5" goldfish in there, all from the feeder fish tank at the local Petsmart. 

The nitrites and nitrates zeroed out a couple of days after adding the last batch of 10 fish as can be seen at the end of the chart.

I suspect the bacterial colonies are adjusting to the small number/size of fish which are likely producing less ammonia than I was manually adding to jump start the cycle.   Also, the addition of squash and now duckweed is helping to soak up the nitrates.

I added duckweed to Sump Tank 2 to provide some fresh treats to the goldfish occasionally, they seem to love it, and to soak up the excess nitrates I was seeing up until just a few days ago.  The duckweed is doing well in this tank with relatively little water disturbance (this tank is tied to Sump 1 at the bottom) and mostly shaded.

and finally pictures of the growbeds as of 5/25/15

We are having fun with our system and starting to harvest some delicious greens already.  We also have a fierce defender should we be attacked by a roving band of barbarians.  He is well armed with blue rubber bands and is a crack shot, so be warned.

The birds and the bees

Spring has definitely sprung!

A pair of Robins has graced us with a nest.  They chose the top of the electrical panel box, likely because it constantly throws off a bit of low heat, good choice really.  So far, she has been extremely tolerant of our activity in the area as this is right next to the back door.

I managed to get up there when momma was off getting dinner and snap a picture of the inside of the nest.

Wowsers, these sure are the prettiest eggs I've ever seen!  The incubation period is about 2 weeks.

The aquaponics system is humming along.  The original plants have doubled in size in Grow Bed3 (GB3)

04/18/15

05/03/15

 The spinach and kale are lagging behind in GB2.  Of the 20 or so seeds of each we planted, only a handful have sprouted.

The lettuce mix seeds we broadcast have been sprouting like crazy.

04/22/15

05/03/15

  Day 14  - 05/03/15

• Temp: 71F
• pH:  7.2
• Ammonia: 0.5 ppm (24 hrs after addition of ammonia)
• Nitrite: 3.5 ppm
• Nitrate: 80 ppm

I've been adding 40-60 ml of ammonia (to get to ~4ppm) every day (the fish will do this when we get them) and the bacteria are starting to change it from ammonia to nitrites and nitrates.  The ammonia is going down to zero every day, but the nitrites are still at 3.5 ppm. I interpret this to mean that the Nitrosomonas bacteria are doing a great job converting ammonia to nitrite, but the Nitrospira bacteria are lagging a bit behind converting the nitrite to nitrate.

When ammonia and nitrites (both of which are toxic to fish) are at or near zero we can stop artificially adding ammonia and begin adding live fish which will produce their own ammonia and the bacteria cycle should just keep cooking along.   I expect this to occur in the next week or so.

Since the kale and spinach seeds germinated so poorly, I moved them to the edge of the GB and planted several more plants from Home Depot in GB2 and a couple of zucchini in GB1.  I am hoping to harvest the lettuce mix before the zucchini squash take over the whole space.

All the seedlings, either sprouted in a GB or starters transplanted from Home Depot have been amazingly tolerant of getting moved around in the media.  Just to get the ones from Home Depot into the system, they had to undergo a rather traumatic "de-soiling", in which the roots were vigorously shaken and then rinsed several times in water to remove the potting soil.

Just for curiosity, I have separated all the leeks, which were in one large bunch like grass, into individual stalks over a few days time all except for 1 or 2 have lived and seem to be thriving.  I also moved several of the tiny lettuce sprouts and all have survived (so far).

4" starts from Home Depot (Bonnie brand) planted 05/03/15

• Sweet Basil (Ocimum basilicum)- start harvesting at 4-6 leaf sets, annual, 2 additional
• Red Bell Pepper (Capsicum annuum) - package: 70-80 days to harvest at 4-5" long peppers
• Easy Pick Gold Zucchini squash - 32 days until harvest, 6-10" fruit
• Golden Scallop Pattypan squash - 49 to 54 days until harvest, 2 to 4" fruit