1000L Greenhouse AP set up First timer

Mordyr

UPDATE: Things still going well fish are growing fast plants are coming back to life!

Water Test
PH 8
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0 - .1 PPM (trace.. very very faint)
Nitrates 0 - 5 plants are hungry buggers
water temp 20 - 25 deg

Now that we have fully finished cycling have returned to feeding 3 times a day cant seem to feed enough to get excess amount of nitrates maybe fish are still to small to produce a large amount of ammonia our one biggest koi, Bruno is getting quite fat cant wait too see how big they all are after our summer. Tomatoes have have started to fruit few and far between but they are there. Strawberry's are doing great going to have some ripe ones soon.. our fist food outa AP mmmmmm. Lettuce is doing better but still not fantastic after the 1 month of starving not sure how much of everything is going to be coming back to life. Pickling cucumbers are going nice with lots of ripening fruits but our other cucumbers are slow and stunted haha not sure whats going to happen there either. We have recently had a infestation of bugs that are stalling our peppers pretty badly... so we screened off the window and door and released 250 ladybugs into our greenhouse they made quick work in one morning with the bug problem.. came in to find all the peppers had like 30 ladybugs on them and now can hardly find a bug.. hopefully introducing lady bugs every now and then will help keep the bugs at bay without any sprays. Peppers seem to flower start to fruit and fall off.. i think due to bugs but also due to high PH and Nutrient lockout. considering pulling the peppers from AP and puttin em in the dirt or getting rid of the bug eaten plants all together. Will be posting some updated pictures today when i go to do my watercheck thats all for now HAPPY GROWING

TCLynx

I've used greensand before but I can't really say how much effect it had.

TCLynx

higher protein feed may help with your nutrient levels. Most "aquarium" and ornamental pond feeds for koi are designed to keep the fish alive yet provide the minimum amount of nutrients possible since the more nutrients the more water changes are needed in aquarium culture and people don't like that. In Aquaponics though, you will probably be better off with a feed that will provide more nutrients for your plants but keep in mind that this will cause your fish to grow faster too.

Mordyr

UPDATE: Wow wow been busy..things going.... decent.. nothing to be raving about but we are still in first year...

Water Test.
PH 7.58 - 7.60 : coming down all on its own just like you guys said :laughing3:

Ammonia - 0 haven't seen for a month no matter how hard we feed although 3 regular feedings a day during 25+ water temp is average
Nitrites - 0 Haven t seen for awhile either
Nitrates - 0 - 5 trace amounts .... still not much of excess food yet

My theory is... the damn tomatoes are eating all the food.. the things are growing like crazy! One of the plants some ppl have trouble with is growing like a weed. Were getting a moderate amount of flowing with quite a few fruits already set.. Lettuce .. still really slow poor growth.. super green and healthy looking just not really growing all that fast.. strange.. thought that was supposed to be one of the better growing things. Peppers..... well lets just say.. the first batch got bug infested to the point where we had to take them out and dunk them in a soapy water solution and sprayed with home made bug sprays and planted in the ground inside the greenhouse seem to be coming back to life.. i think i even saw some new flowers starting! we replaced with some peppers we started from seed and their growth is very slow like the lettuce..
Strawberry season is over and are now sending out runners.. its a shame we did not do more strawberry's or have our plants more mature earlier in the year .. they did great as well .. one of the only things that pulled threw the month with no fish with hardly any problems.. we have been taking the runners and planting them in the bed along side everything else the hope is over the years to fully engulf our more shallow bed (IBC tote top flipped ip with probably 200L capacity)with ever bearing strawberry's. Cucumbers have come back with a vengeance already picked 4 pickling cukes (only planted 3 plants.. dont know what we were thinking as it will take many more for 1 jar of pickles) other variety's of cucumbers all tho small (due to 1 month without fish stalled out) have grown some but are loaded with new flowers and fruits not sure if all of them will develop but we shall see. Fish are getting larger every day.. seem to be super happy still 0 losses.. not bad for a first timer.. all tho they are koi and locally sourced.
Crayfish.. not sure if their even getting food.. i drop in 4 freshwater muscles in the bottom of the tank every 2 days but im not sure if its the fish eating them or the crayfish.. hope im not starving the little buggers... they still seem active and very much alive some im not to panicked.. i only have about 8 in the tank.
Some other interesting developments i noticed some of the cukes will flower start to fruit and then die.. while others are going strong... is this natural selection to ensure seed? or most likly a nute deficiency due to 7.5+ PH .. hope it comes down to 6.8 soon Things in the ground around the green house are growing like mad.. we are going to have like 40 squash and 50 zucchini Ha ha growing like wild fire.. i find it odd that any cucumbers planted in the ground inside or out have not flowered yet but AP ones have.. boy.. the more i think i understand the more questions i begin to have.. this is a fickle hobby to get perfect but i love a challenge.. Keep forgetting to get new pictures but i hope to have some soon.. anyhow i been rambling for some time and must get to sleep hope to get some responses Have a good night all

Charlie

Photos??

Mordyr

OK where to start...Its been a long time since updates so ill fill you in as best as i can... the years growing season has been what i could call a learning experience to moderate success. Things were going great threw mid summer and their was a few.. WT F moments.. Our lettuces never grew.. so we turfed those way early on and exchanged with some bean which we have been harvesting recently Our tomatoes grew and grew and grew and grew and grew to the point when we had a canopy above our heads crawling across chicken wire hung overhead. we had fresh tomatoes all summer but due to lack of sun and late summer we had funny ripening conditions top 1/5 of fruit would be somewhat green and bottom would be ripe and this was not localized to only our AP tomatoes outside greenhouse had similar condition so chalk it up to weird summer. Our cucumbers did the same thing.. lots of good growth we were eating fresh cucumbers all year.. to a excess we were giving em away and mom ending up making a batch of relish with 14 good sized cukes from AP its about this time the problems started... it started on the cucumbers first.. well .. started earlier than that.. we noted on newer growth and lack of new good flowers being produced as time went on less flowing and poor pollination.. then on older growth symptoms of potassium deficiency set in old leaves dying and drying up.. we were not to worried as it was near the end of theses plants lives anyway. Tomatoes exhibited similar symptoms but already lots of fruits set we did not care as any new ones would not make it to ripen anyway so we just let it happen. By the time we got Potassium bicarb via the internet it was to late as you can only ad 1 TBS to 1000 liters and the ph goes up noticeable amount and stays for a few days before slowly dropping.. be cautions when adding this stuff its pretty potent. Di-spite our attempts we could not undo what had been done.. and were forced to remove tomatoes and cucumbers and did so 2 weeks apart to give clean beds a chance to return to full filtering capabilities without throwing tank for a loop. It was upon cleaning when we had one of those WTF moments... cleaning the cucumber bed we noticed plants near water in had nicer root balls vs on other side of bed... interesting.. this bed was not to bad.. some root matter still in their but not to gross we rinsed a few times and drained of to side of tank till gravel rinsed almost clear then hooked uup return back to tank 2 weeks later same went to pull the tomatoes out and got a huge surprise.. ROOTS EVERYWHERE . i mean this was packed.. our half barrel was full i couldn't even pull the stocks outta the gravel easy took 2 hands once we got the initial root mass outta the way the real work began... we dug and cleaned and dug and cleaned and once again around the water in-feed was solid as well as around drain .. but at far end.. considerably less. as we got deeper it got nastier..brown gross roots.. not healthy looking or smelling.. with the water in-feed and drain so clogged no wonder we dont have any flow on a side note.. Dont plant 8 tomatoes in the same half barrel big mistake.. DUH *smacks forehead* the looked much smaller when we planted them. Anyways back to the cleaning we cleared right to the bottom and picked out 90% of nasty looking root matter to the best of our ability and once again rinsed and flushed numerous times out side of tank before retuning to service...

Our fish have been doing fantastic had a scare at one point and bough some pond salt but rather than add in a panic we waited it out and turned out to be nothing but still nice to have salt on hand . All Koi have become quite large and will be moving them to a fenced in pen in our pond for winter storage.. Hoping to get 30 6 inch trout to go threw the winter with a bit more active in the cold weather and wont have to heat tank to keep active. Was thinking of possibly selling some of the large nice looking koi to buy hydroton for barrels. We have not had a single loss all summer +1 for good fish keeping ability loll

Over winter improvements to be made

1 Water distribution rings around the edge of our half barrels plus tote top to distribute water more evenly around entire barrel... any thoughts on size of holes to be made in PVC to get a decent flood time?
3 Floating raft barrel for lettus been really wanting to try this have materials ready to go
4 Insulate fish tank for winter service + tank heater
5 Learn to prune and properly maintain tomatoes. and plant in various areas around system vs all in one bed.
6 Proper climbers

Well im tired and am done rambling for now.. My mom has month to month pictures they will we try to post soon until then keep on growin !