2013 Spring Growing in the Aquaponic System

Well, its been awhile since my last post, but Ive been busy during the winter. After 18 months of fish waste buildup in the gravel growbeds I had the misfortune of major clogging in the beds with fish waste at the end of December. Two of my grow beds clogged completely, causing them to overflow and draining two of the fish tanks overnight.  I only had about 4"-6" of water in each tank,  but thankfully I didnt lose any fish, but due to the extreme cold of the water(approx. 45 degrees), it took me several days to fill the tanks back up. I had to add water and wait for it to heat up over a day, then add more, and on and on until both were full. I then took on the task of cleaning the growbeds, this took approx. 7 full days over a two to three week period in January, in the cold. It wasnt any fun, since I only had a five gallon bucket with holes in the bottom covered with mesh and a high pressure hose nozzle on a garden hose. I could only wash about three gallons of gravel at a time. It was painstaking, back breaking work, and cleaning 400 gallons of gravel should not be taken lightly, but it paid off in the end. Unfortunately, I had contracted the flu while doing this in temps that hovered in the 30-40 degree range and I paid for it afterwards.

I had  to remove all 40 tomato plants and most of the basil and mint from the beds, everything else had been choked out by the basil and tomato plants prior to the clogging. I was able to salvage a few pieces of mint and a few basil plants, but everything else was tossed out. I replanted 6 weeks ago and you can see from the video that cleaning the gravel beds was well worth the effort.

Enjoy...and keep on growing.

Progress 5th June 2013

Quick update.  Things are improving.  Must be Wanna doing it and me being away.  Sure a good logic to that as I keep adjusting everything in sight....

Still no complaints.  Ive also been working on updating my feed calculations.  Should be done tomorrow. My main problem/delay is messing round with the files to get them uploaded.

Fish looking good. Plants improving and only down side is the shard cloth.  Could be I installed it a bit tight at the beginning. More slack with the wind etc. Still all coming right slowly. Will start to weigh fish a bit more often now.  Well check on dead ones as well but they have already lost some weight. So not so accurate.

Fish Feed Rates

Just added a few tables on the other page "Our Feed Rates"to keep track of fish feeding and growth rates.

One Dead Fish And Some Tomatoes

Never nice when things die, and that even goes for my nameless fish!
He was a small one (probably from the second batch we bought). And he appeared to have some sort of infection around his eyes, watching him I had noticed the cat fish attacking him a few times. Not a good sign. I took him out of the tank and had a more detailed look at him. No energy, and he did not seem bother to suck in the air,  and on putting him back in the tank it was clear he had lost interest in life. What to do? I was worried he would infect all the other guys so unfortunately he had to go. Where you ask? Over the wall. Finished. Sadly.

The tomatoes on the other hand are doing OK. Minimal disease and only a few white fly to worry about. Interestingly around the flood pipes to the grow beds where we have put a small mesh to stop the water flowing too fast it is attracting numerouns bees. Seem to be the water which they are after. Maybe also to whatever it is thats in the water.

Also planted some seeds, 5 different Thai herbs, so will wait and see how they develop. Interesting.
And might even get some red tomatoes in a  few weeks. Watch this spot.