these are really Jan 24th pics

Jan 6th 2010

Happy New Year!

Update photos

Tomato Flowers Starting!

Edamame looking good

Have 6x gold fish in the tank now. tested the water and found zero Nitrites (no fish waste) interesting - before I had dangerous levels of nitrites. This means the beneficial bacteria have been established and are now converting the fishwaste into awesome plant food! yay! system shot - on the left 3 grape tomato plants and 3 edamame plants - on the right 3 lettuce plants and one "big" tomato plant with the 2 Thai Basil plants on the most right side.


Check out the Edamame

The "big" tomato plant - with my bbq chicken tray seedling starter in the background.

Grow Tent

I made a rectangle out of 1/2 inch pvc pipe and taped 3 reflective space blankets to make a homemade grow tent. Should help bounce more light all over. In the blue circle you can see tomato flower about to bloom. I made some more holes too. Now I have 3 bean plants, 4 tomato plants, 2 Thai Basil, 2 butter head lettuce and I have some more seedings going with bell peppers, cucumbers, and some sweet basil. I cut back the tomato plants too.

Mistakes and Lessons Learned!

I got some really bad advice from a garden shop guy to put some hydrated lime in my system so the plants would get some much needed nutrients. It instantly killed the 4 gold fish I had. I'm also thinking it killed my beneficial bacteria so I could be waiting for the nitrogen cycle to get established again (3-4 weeks).

*Edit* I later found out that Hydrated lime is actually excellent for raising PH. Its strong stuff so be careful and I would just use a teaspoon if you have under 20 gal system like me and then test the PH.

Ironite - I would not recommend using ironite in aquaponics - it turned my pristine white roots into a brown grey mess. At least it didn't kill the fish. If your gonna add anything use Maxicrop Seaweed extract.

I flushed the whole system with clean water and then added hydroponics liquid nutirents (many Aquaponics pros say you don't actually need to add anything once the system is over 6 months old.) Which is what I probably should have done in the first place but I really wanted to see if I could grow stuff with just fish water.