Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The english is better in this link http://archanaskitchen.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/bajji/

what a lovely little system Gokul! Well done!

Thank you all of you, you make me feel good. Ah appreciation ... gives anyone the energy to do more crazy stuff...

http://www.kolkatabuzz.com/html/bhojon_roshik.html
I have friends who make Pakura that looks like this one. Is that similar? Yum anyway!

Sweet and simple Gokul.... and thanks for the recipe site.... definite bookmark that one

I don't know those links myself. Just googled and picked good links off the first few pages thats all. (I love cooking though). And while we're off topic, here's another food site I liked. Indian food, good english, nice overall appeal : (a blog) http://indosungod.blogspot.com/

Also, with the mint that I plucked off I made mint chutney that I had with dosa and it was GOOD. The AP mint was really strong in flavour. Maybe its just my illusion, there is no way to measure taste.

It might be subjective Gokul.... but many others have remarked similarly about the improved taste of vegetables and herbs grown in an AP system...

Yummmmm - onion bajjis are my favorite! LOVE Indian food!

I couldn't resist using these smileys

I've got through hsm without a test kit :

Now some mint is already eaten, waiting for tomatoes, etc :


My system is really small, but it will only make setting up large systems (near future) very very easy.
And I like these smileys

Added another similar sized (slightly larger and rectangular) growbed.
Also - I spotted three flower buds on one tomato plant (don't know if this is due to stress but I don't care now - just want my first tomato!)

The happy news for me is the addition of a growbed, thus more than doubling the old growbed volume. I will estimate the growbed volumes more closely later.

The growbed : fishtank ratio is now increased to about 1:1. This enhanced filtration is going to vaporise most of my problems with recurring ammonia/nitrite-spikes.
I will also be able to increase my feed rate and thus get more plant growth.

Pics - maybe soon; no guarantee though.

Fish addition : Although the plant growth was decent, there are six or more tomato flowers and I really felt 5 goldfish couldn't power them, and more plants that I wanted to add. (beans?)

So I added 5 more goldfish.

Extra growbed is awesome : There is hardly any spike! Oh my! This is very important, newbies, who are struggling like I was : if you think your growbed is small and things are spiky and plant growth bad do add more growbeds first - someone needs to process the ammonia to nitrates first(bacteria), the food and fish come later.
Although any growbed however small almost always has enough surface area for bacteria. The neccessity for more growbed volume in relation to fishtank volume mainly has to do with the turnover rate.

Now the extra growbed gives me so much courage to add more fish and more feed (as my ultimate aim is for more veggies).

Fish always hungry and happy! Plant growth better too.

Eisenia foetida (composting worm) and compost into growbed :I added a teaspoon of compost from my newly started micro worm-composting-'farm' to attempt to add biodiversity. Also I knew the castings would encourage good bacteria to grow and parasites to perish.
I also added 4 or 5 worms (eisina fetida) to each growbed. So they can line all the gravel surfaces with their nice moisture retentive mucous. And encourage bacteria. And keep the growbed free of dead spots/clogging. And I think they even have plant growth hormones in their castings.

More photos (yes I have taken them long ago (July 5th - now it's October) and I'm posting them now.)
Since I don't own a camera, you will have to wait for current photos until any of my cousins drop by.(You will also see my awesome (small) vermicomicompost tub and my worms then)

Below you will see the new little shallow growbed that I've added (the light grey -brown one). I've connected the two growbeds by a simple no hole siphon - just a short piece of blue-green hose. (The siphon ends are always _under_ the inch of water that remains even after the growbed drains away, so it works.)