Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nice going Koos. Hopefully with the increased flow the plants will take off.

Regards, Martin.

Martin it seems very promising so far.

Interesting is that the fish all instantly moved much deeper in the pond. I can't see the fish any more accept hen they come up for food.

The cocopeat was a very effective filter and the water was crystal clear with that in the beds, but it did become saturated and obviously it is not possible to backwash the cocopeat. I might consider a bit of sand filtration in future.

The pond has a well developed layer of algae too and the fish feed on that for most of the day.

Today, I made 2 dead growth beds live again and added another 2, so I now have 18 growth beds in total.

I also added another 20 Comets yesterday to help the NO3 increase a bit and will probably add another 20 Koi two weeks form now.

The PH went down in the past 3 weeks. It now is 7,6. Will check a bit more regularly for the next few weeks.

Cool, Koos, maybe that pH is under control as a result of the changes you made. It looks good, hope it all works out. I think maybe the whole system will get a bit of a boost - more grow space, more fish, more water flow. I think you're going in the right direction.

Regards, Martin.

All still seems good.

The PH is now constant at 7.4 for the past few weeks without any adjustments from my side and the extra flow made a huge difference.

The plants are growing quickly and even the last peppers I have put in are happy now. They started making fruit already and the little peppers has a nice shape.

The tomato plants became nice and strong, the Spinach develops thick leaves and once can see that root development is much better.

It also seems to me that seedlings needs to be rather stronger plants before you put them in the gravel. Too small, and they still struggle.

The only plants that still struggles a lot, are the cucumbers and the baby marrows. I am busy making new seedlings and will give them some time to grow larger before I put them in the gravel.

I made one growth bed a nursery where I have put in seedling trays with cocopeat in. I then just took out some stone so that the botttom of the seedling trays are in the water. This works very well to keep it moist and the seeds germinates well.

I also had to put in a strainer in before the pump to prevent it from getting clogged and although it is a very course strainer, it quickly develops a matt of algae and the clarity of the water improved a lot. I have to clean that twice a day at the moment.

Other than that, the new leaves coming out the last week has a slight bit of yellow in them and I am going to see if chelated iron will do the trick as I have not ever put any in the water. My topup water cones from a borehole so that is already rich in minerals, by not necessarily iron.

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Great to see your plant growth picking up. Nice work.

Regards, Martin.

koosjr,

The best way to resize your photos for uploading is by using Microsoft Image Resizer, it's a free program that runs in the background of Windows and you just need to "Right Click" on your photo and choose a size.



https://imageresizer.codeplex.com/
http://microsoft-powertoys-image-resize ... tonic.com/

A week later. Iron Chelate added and the improvement is huge.

The leaves are getting darker slowly.

Although some of my green peppers works this time, I still have an unexplained issue where some of them grows well and the dies an instant death. It just drops the leaves in a matter of hours and then I have to pull it out.



https://www.dropbox.com/s/irkh529leettv ... 6.jpg?dl=0

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just wondering how much of the chelated iron you added? to what volume of water? my plants are looking a little on the pastel green side and not a nice vibrant green. I added 10ml to each of my 650l tanks

Here is the datasheet of the product I used.

http://www.efekto.co.za/wp-content/uplo ... e_2014.pdf


Initially I added 20ml on my 8000 litres of water (6000 in the pond, about 2000 in the beds).

As this was the first time I ever added iron, I watched my tank like a hawk that day and by late afternoon I could see the fish were VERY unhappy - some of them started swimming funny.

So I immediately dropped 50% of the water and added it up. The fish recovered well and after 3 days they behaved normally again.

I had no idea this product is so potent - the water had a strong iron taste before I dropped the 50%.

So, I will add again, but nothing more than 2.5 ml next time.

The plants steadily picked up colour in the leaves this week. I am watching the spinach in particular.

Really enjoying seeing your progress Koos.
Great to see the plants thriving like that.

Photos taken yesterday. 6 days from previous.

Looking great!

looking great Koos. Wondering how well your seeds grow in your little tubs into the media. I am struggling with direct sowing of the seeds and your method looks good. What do you put in the pots and how to you stop it "leaking" into your grow bed media? Looks like you have also raised the water level in that bed?
Thanks

It works but is not close to perfect.

Basically, I just excavated from rock in that bed and have put in the trays with cocopeat in it with the feet in the water so that I do not need to manage the daily watering.

Some of the seeds comes up easily, but others struggle.

The easy ones with 80% germination are the spinach, parsley and the cabbage.

50% success was the baby marrow and the cucumber.

30% success the coriander and the green pepper.

I still need something better.