Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone, it has been two weeks since I wrote.
Last weekend, the state at the end of week 4 since starting my aquaponic setup was so unremarkable that I did not feel like reporting.

The water test results show no change over last two to three weeks.

----------PH--- Ammonia---Nitrite---Nitrate
Mar 06-- 8.2 --- 0.00 ------ 0.0 ----- 0
Mar 07-- 8.2 --- 0.00 ------ 0.0 ----- 0
Mar 08-- 8.2 --- 0.00 ------ 0.0 ----- 0
Mar 09-- 8.0 --- 0.00 ------ 0.0 ----- 0
Mar 10-- 8.0 --- 0.25 ------ 0.0 ----- 0

Mar 18-- 8.2 --- 0.00 ------ 0.0 ----- 0

Vegie growth at the growbed starting from seedings (as opposed to seeds) was reasonable but some were infected by pests.
Comparing last weekend (the end of 4 weeks) to this (the end of 5 weeks) is a bit difficult because I started harvisting some last weekened. But here are the pictures from two weekends:
I had harvested two different types of lettuce (one shown below) that had satisfactory growth.

The vegies that showed encouraging growth patterns from seedling:
1] lettuces of all types - I can now see that I can harvest them in four to five weeks from planting seedlings;
2] basil: can harvest in four weeks, and continue harvesting.
3] spring onion, tomato and strawberry: reasonable growth, but it does not look like I will can harvest in next two weeks. It make take another four weeks, which would mean 9 weeks from planting seedlings. Summer will be gone by then.

Now, the vegies with problems, mainly pest problems.
Cabbage, broccoli, bok choi, and chinese cabbage are all infested with white fly and what seems to be aphids. Many holes in leaves, and plant growth itself affected. Luckly, it does not affect lettuce, tomato, and strawberry and green onion even though they are planted densely and so close to each other.
I am enouraged by this pattern since I regard lettuce as the most important, tomato and strawberry as second, and others coming after these. Capsicum is important but I did not plant it at the same time as lettuce, so I cannot say.
In future I will separate those that are infected with pests easily, and I might not continue with them if I do not succeed.

The grow beds that was planted with seeds had partial success depending on type of plants. Comparing today (Sunday) to last weekend:

In this growbed, originally meant to plant seeds only for comparision, I ended up planting some seedlings because the middle part that was planted with the seeds of spring onion and spinach showed almost no sprout.
Two visible vegies that grew out of seeds were lettuce on upper left and cucumber and zucchini on lower right. The tomato plant at the bottom was one from seedling. The tall one in the middle is another tomato plant that was orginally planted elsewhere but was dying after giving two tomatos. It began to have more green leaves in this aquaponic growbed.

The pattern of lettuce growth from seeds is worth mentioning.
Rather than planting a small number of seeds, I sprinkled a generous amount. Initially, most of them sprounted, but perhaps, one third died. I am not sure about the reason. It is possible that watering is different for different areas. (I am not sure about this. Flooding would fill all areas with water.) I might add some more seeds in the areas where sprouts died since the main purpose of this experiment is to find out whether I can grow lettuce from seeds without buying seedlings. Just put more seeds.

My duckweed growing seems to be improving.
The lastest addition of trick was to add a little bit of cat poo.
I am not sure whether it was the cat poo that did it yet.
I also changed the position of grow tray.

warm blooded animals offer a few problems to the humans at the other end of the cycle. I cant remember what disease, but it's best to avoid it.

Drop in some fish food instead.

But your system looks great.

I cant believe you were right, and started harvesting after 4 weeks

An important distinction is two different starting points: one from seedling and another from seeds. Seedling must be about 4 weeks ahead of seeds. Therefore, lettuce from seeds would take 8-9 weeks.
The lettuce and basil from seedling could be harvested in 4-5 weeks. But it looks like tomato, spring onion, and strawberry make take 3-4 more weeks to start harvisting.

If these were from seeds, add another 4 weeks?

Looks good Sejin

I tend to grow from seed but then transplant.

Especially with things like lettuce, you can just pick out the good ones, and seeds are a dollar for a hundred

Transplanting from clay balls to clay balls makes almost no disturbance to growth, unlike transplanting from bought seedlings (if you wash them properly) where there is a stall for a few days as the plant settles down and re-grows some broken roots (I think)

When I grew all my lettuce in NFT tubes I would leave them in their original (seeded) pots, but move them 3 times over their lives to tubes with greater spaces between the holes to allow for growth. I play with growing them in pots in the media before I started with the NFT, and that worked well also.

So I would bury an ice cream container with holes drilled in the bottom, to allow water flow.
I'd put 9 pots into it and put seeds in the pots, then when they were seedling sise, I'd move them into a densely populated corner of the grow bed, but populated so they had enough room to grow, then once they had outgrown their space, I would spread them out into their final grow space until harvest.

The ice cream container was 8 inch square for the first 9, the second space was the rest of the strip of the blue barrel that the icream container was in, so 8 inches x the width of the blue barrel, then the final grow out space was the rest of the blue barrel. To grow my 27 lettuce all spaced out from the start would have taken twice the space.

looking good dude, also looks like you finally got your ammonia problem sorted as well. plants are looking tasty on top of it all. good work.

Thanks everyone for encouragement.
It seems I am a bit greedy. I am somewhat satisfied with my result so far, but not fully.
All silver perch died after all. Although eating fish is not most important to me, I would like to be able to experience growing of fishes other than goldfish. Vegie growth is reasonable for those not infected by pests. I am yet to see tomatos and strawberries.

As for the seeds that did not sprout, I think I now discovered the possible reason.
All of them were the old ones that my wife bought more than ten years!
These are the seeds envelops with names written Japanese.
I only learned today that seeds have limited lifetime for sprouting.

Sejin

Now that I had experienced growing of lettuce both from sprayed seeds as well as planted seedlings, I will start seeds in small pots, yogurt cups with holes. It will be easier to move position. I now fill somewhat confident to expand growbeds.

Hi Sejin,
I've been working on a herb garden here at my mother-in-law's place in Coffs Harbour and thought of the germination box I've been using when I read your last post. It works really well and have already transplanted radish, basil and a lot of rocket that germinated in it (see the empty slots in the second row from the front).

Yoghurt cups would also work well, as long as the seeds/seedlings are protected against drying out -- not that there'd be much danger of that around here at the mo. I think if yr system is up and running BullwinkleII's suggestion with the ice cream container with clay balls and holes in it would be the best idea.

I have that same model of seed raising house, and I found it worked well with my media filled pots in winter, but not in summer.

In winter the condensation kept up a light rain on the seeds, but in summer I got better results in the grow bed.

This winter I thought I might try clear plastic cups placed upside down over the seeds in the growbed to get the best of both worlds.

Sounds like a good idea.
Yr system is looking great. How's the family liking it now? Still think it's an eyesore?