Things are looking good.  I have been religiously checking the water for any nitrites.  Ammonia has been at about 2ppm all week so I was expecting nitrites to start to rise.  But realising that to go from Ammonia to Nitrites I need some bacteria.  To aid this, I rinsed out some sponge media from my aquarium into the fishtank of the new setup.  Last night I showed nitrites of about .25ppm!  It is now starting to come together!

On the gr0wbed side, all the surviving cucumber plants have bloomed with flowers and the strawberry seems to be shooting new plants!  I don’t know what it is called when they do that but there must be a name!  The two tomato plants which were struggling seem to be coming back since I moved them to a shallower part of the grow bed.

Pretty stoked about the way it is going!

I made a few enquiries about getting fish this week….It seems that it is about a month too early for rainbow trout – They need water which is constantly below 20 degrees….Mine is about 22 degrees!  The other option would be Silver Perch – these would take a few years to grow big enough to eat so I will have to wait for the trout.  This give me time to properly cycle the tank ready for them.

For those not so acquainted with fish keeping, cycling the tank is important.  It is often done with the fish in the water but has an effect on the fish which could kill them – there are other ways!  The cycling process basically involves adding ammonia into the tank.  This in turn creates nitrites and then nitrates.  Since ammonia and Nitrites are harmful to the fish, it is preferable to do this without the fish!  To add ammonia, I have used a fish extract called Charlie Carp – a fish extract used in gardening.  I only started this yesterday, so I only have ammonia at this point but hopefully it will get moving soon….

I have also decided to add a few seeds to see how they go, 4 heads of corn and 2 iceberg lettuces.  When I say 2 lettuces, that is 2 pots and several seeds in each, so there could be a number of them.  I have simply wrapped the seeds in tissue and placed them in a seedling pot filled with clay media.  I don’t know if this is how it is done but we will soon see!

I have also had a little clean up and cable tied the plant liner to it’s support as it was sagging a little.  easy process, drilling 2 holes and a cable tie.

That’s about it for this week….not much to do but probably good as there was not a lot of time to do it!

 

Sadly, I haven’t had time to post over the last week or two but this time has seen some advancements in the building of my setup.

The slabs went down pretty quick one evening ready for the unit to be put into place and for the plumbing to begin.

 

As I said, I had been convinced to run the pump 24×7 and not use a timer.  So this made the plumbing really easy.  I filled it up with water and tested it all out.  No leaks and it all looked ready to add media.  Uh Oh….My source for media at $20/bag had disappeared from Gumtree – I can only presume he sold it.  Anyway a little searching on Gumtree found another dealer selling it for $33 a bag – more than $20 but much better than the $45 from the shop around the corner.  After some discussion he even delivered it free!  Tony of Life Aquatic rocked up with 5 bags on his ute, checked out my setup and said it looked ready to go – Good job!  Tony does this for a living so if you need any advice or supplies, give him a call.

That afternoon, I filled the grow bed which immediately washed clay dust straight into the fishtank!  Anyway that eventually cleaned itself up.   At this point the system is ready for some plants.  I even got Chris’s approval!

The following weekend saw me at Bunnings buying seedlings!  This place seems to be consuming plenty of my money lately – You know what it is like when you go in for a thing or two….and get 5!

Planting the seedings is much cleaner than traditional gardening – no digging the soil over adding composts etc….Take the seedling, wash off the dirt in a bucket of water to expose the roots and plant it in the clay grow bed!  I planted some Strawberries, 3 varieties of tomatoes, capsicum, cos lettuce and cucumber.  This is now starting to look like the real thing!  To feed the plants without having fish, I have been adding in some seasol.

The kids seem pretty happy with my work (and even keen to help at times)….Let’s see how long that lasts!