Just got back from a small vacation around Colorado and found my aquaponic pepper plant had fruit on it. Sadly I am not sure what kind of pepper it actually is, but it is starting to look like a bell.
And just for fun here are a few pics from our travels
I haven’t put out an update on this yet and it is well overdue. This aquaponics system has really just started to cycle and it is very easy to tell from how much some of these plants have grown. I have added a bunch of vegetables and herbs to the garden that I got at Lowe’s the other day. I ended up making one of the ebb and flow plant beds into a deep water culture bed and have planted mostly leafy greens and herbs in this area.
I used some high density styrofoam normally used for insulating houses. I just cut it to shape and cut out a bunch of holes of which I placed some 2 and 3 inch mesh cups. I removed the bell siphon from the bed and viola it is done.
I recently purchased some chelated iron and some rock phosphate to help add those missing nutrients into the system. The Ph in the system is still a little high at 7.4 but should hopefully be going down soon. The water is at about which is probably on the very low-end, I believe it should be higher.
Much like the last aquaponics system some fish have given their lives and I only have about half the goldfish I started with. The death rate has plummeted down to near zero for a couple of weeks so hopefully that is a lasting trend, I do feel kinda bad about it!
I had so much fun with my first aquaponics experiment, Adventures in Aquaponics, so a new system was created. The original setup was very simple, and t worked, but I like to make complicated devices and a new aquaponics system was just what was needed to scratch that itch.
I started off with a storage shelf that would be used to hold the three tiers of the system. The top shelf holds the two smaller plastic containers, the middle holds the fish, and the bottom shelf holds the drain and pump tanks.
For the plant beds a bell siphon was used to create an ebb and flow system. Hydroton was added as a medium for the plants, I am not sure that this is what I want to use however as it floats and the smaller pieces are already infiltrating my aquaponics system. Each bed is powered by its own 400 GPH pump.
The fish tank is powered by a single 120 GPH pump that keeps water going into the fish tank, it has a fall and helps to aerate the water. I used the water heater, rocks, air pump, fish, and some of the water from the original system. 10 more fish were purchased at the pet store. As the system gets started some of these fish will die, sorry its going to happen already been there, however the aquaponics system will start up much faster than other cycling methods.
Finally the drain tank and pump tanks on the bottom. Both the plant beds and fish tank drain into the drain tank. The drain tank is connected to the pump tank by a 2 inch pipe near the top of both tanks. I created a homemade filter that screws into the 2 inch inlet in the pump tank to help prevent larger solids from entering the pump tank.
To start off Adventures in Aquaponics was in my opinion an overall success, and while I waned to continue the experiment, I have created a new beast. More on that later.
I have continued to see great growth from most of the plants and the lettuce has grown quite large. The fish are still in good health and are getting larger everyday. I feed the fish through a hole in the top of the tank lid I made and they always get fed from that hole. The greedy little fish dart to that spot every time anyone enters the room to take a look at the happenings. So now I can say that my gold fish do a trick.
I harvested the lettuce from the aquaponics experiment.
It wasn’t much really, a cereal bowls worth, but it was used for dinner. Now I must profess that I like gardening and I like eating fruits and vegetables, but I am no vegetarian. So in proper form it was slider night. And they turned out great, clearly the fresh fish poop lettuce made it that way! Experiencing the entire process from growing the plant, to its preparation, and finally consumption is very fulfilling in so many ways.
I felt that the successful harvest from this experiment was in itself proof that even the simplest of setups can be used to grow ones own vegetables using aquaponics. To that end I have been working on a new and improved aquaponic systems. I have decided to grow more using this method just on a slightly larger scale.
Over the last three weeks I have designed and built a complete aquaponics system, which I will cover in a upcoming blog post. I have re-utilized some of the parts to this system like the fish, gravel, water heater, and air pump to use in the new system and it is already up and running,
Week 3 is now up and miracously two fish are still alive. The plants are doing good so far. The lettuce and tomato plants are growing great but the peppers only grow slowly.
The water in the aquarium is still a bit cloudy burt every thing seems to be ok. I just keep waiting on that moment where the remaining fish suddenly kick the chum bucket.
It has just been under two weeks since the inception of the experiment. There have been some downs and some ups but we continue to enjoy our adventure.
The remaining two fish continue to live, I didn’t expect it either! They are both eating well and seem to be doing well for the moment. The water is starting to get cloudy again, the same cloudiness that I experienced when the last four fish were killed. That doesn’t mean the fish will die, of course it does not mean they won’t!
The pea plant died a horrible death, but the plants still continue to fare better than the fish ever did. The lettuce has some great roots and is starting to get bulkier. The tomato plant is growing huge roots and still looks decent. I theorize that the tomato plants roots are so well developed is that it is searching for food it so desperately craves. The pepper plants are just there, they have started decent roots but are not really growing at all.
I honestly thought all of these fish were going to die a horrible death and yet two still live. They are hungry and eating well again, and appear much more active. I had to wait patiently by the tank to snap a picture with both of them in it, just to prove there are two lol.
The bean stalk I thought was doing well looks dried and shriveled which is odd as it has roots in the water. It could not be very fond of the water or it was destined to die. Either way he ain’t looking so good. Other than that everything seems to be stable and on the up and up. I will follow up with this experiment blog if there is a special and or catastrophic event and provide only weekly updates.
Guess what another fish didn’t die. The water is clear, minus some minor amounts of debris floating around. They still don’t appear to be into food at all, however they do seem slightly less lethargic then they had been.
Plants are still doing great and had some really nice root structures going. Still not a lot of top growth but they look healthy so far.
Well another day passes and so does another gold fish. There are only two fish standing and the water is still clearing up. The remaining fish don’t really eat at the moment and just aren’t looking the greatest. The plants again continue to grow good root structure and are growing the tiniest amounts on the top. While it isn’t a lot of growth the bean stalk in the top left was looking pretty rough but it appears to be starting to grow some more leaves, it will be neat to see if it comes back from the one leaf it had.
Unfortunately, one of my children did the due diligence of cleaning out the dead gold fish for me. So his lifeless image will not be for ever immortalized on the internet.
The murdering spree continues 3 fish in 3 days. The water is starting to appear a little clearer than before. The plants are fairing much better than the fish, there hasn’t been a tremondous amount of growth on the top, however the root structures conrinue to grow amazingly.
Knowledge Vault 