Finale for my part

I have moved to Hawaii so I have reached an end to operating my office aquaponic system. The system has been passed on to my family. It will be the first system that I built and is the first system that I have given away. I feel really good about being able to pass on aquaponics to another. I have realized that I like setting up systems. Odd, but satisfying. I never intended to donate it.  I have found pleasure in giving the system away as well. Perhaps I have a future in doing such a thing.

This is how I left my system. I relocated it underneath an east facing window to reduce supplemental light and to allow the rising sun to bask the plants.

Good luck!

Thank you for following this blog. In time I will achieve more, but for now I must focus on school so I can do this for a living.

My First Flower!

I have my first flower! Okay, so the sepals have just opened and the petals are following. It is a good day for this plant. It has finally reached maturity!

Now if I could just keep providing the plant an excellent source of light, she would flower like crazy...

As days go by...

As the days go on the plants continue to thrive. The habaneros are getting larger. The tomato is growing like crazy. I continue to weave it down and within a couple days the plants are stretched out reaching towards the window. I feel they want better light than the shop light with aquarium bulbs.

The fish are feeding voraciously. I try to make sure to give enough flakes for 5 minutes of feeding. I still am doing this twice a day. I am going to switch to a different feed here pretty soon. Something more nutritious than the flakes I have currently. I am considering an automatic feeder. More on why in a few.

I am leaving off for school in a week. I will no longer be able to operate my system. I am passing on the system to another to whom I am teaching the "basics".

I have learned a lot over these past months and I hope to take this knowledge that I gained and apply it to future experiences.

( pictures to come ...!!!)

Here Fishy, fishy..

One more fish died. One of the newer fish that I added was having a hard time acclimating. His dorsal fin never really perked up and he struggled to eat.

The rest of the fish look hearty. They are swimming and eating just fine. I think I did a better job of introducing new fish to my system.

I decided to chat with a pet store associate that was knowledgeable about fish. I spent about 30 minutes chatting with him about my system and some of the dramas I have encountered. The main issues have been introducing new fish to the system. I was recommended to try a drip acclimation for new fish. Fish at the pet store live in water slightly different than mine. Basically, I siphoned water from my tank into a bowl containing the new fish with the pet store water. The idea: slowly get the fish used to a change in water quality. After about a half hour I added the new creatures to my system.

I learned a lot by talking about my system with a gentleman who knew almost nothing about aquaponics but was able to approach me from an aquatic perspective. This is the second time that someone with a fish's perspective has allowed me to resolve appropriate issues. I will continue to value and foster relationships with those who understand the marine and aquatic worlds.

The system has been running smoothly for the last month. There have been no issues or setbacks to deal with lately. The tomato has begun to cover the screen above it. I am starting to weave it through itself. The stems seem to take the curviest paths to their current locations. Aside from all the twists, the tomato is growing vigorously. I have to tamp down the vertical growth every couple of days. If not the tomato grows into the light, which may eventually burn the plant.

No flowers yet. I am starting to wonder if my lack of flowers has to do with my involvement. In the sense that I have chosen to grow a tomato indoors under mostly supplemented light. I am beginning to think that the lack of proper lighting conditions and possibly other environmental influences, like room temperature, stifle the growth of floral buds.

The habanero peppers are doing great. One has just begun to set it's sixth set of leaves while the other is working on it's fourth. The leaves look larger and healthier than most habaneros I have grown outside in Colorado.

The carrot greens are starting to lose their turgidity. (Noticeable in first photo) I am considering pulling them and calling an end to the aquaponic carrot experiment. The carrots seem to be quite small, both in length and diameter. This is a guess based on uncovering and peeking at the carrots' "shoulders".

I have also added 6 new goldfish. I originally added 10 but 2 died the first night, one the next morning and one that managed to sneak into my net. I accidently suffocated the little dude when I failed to notice a fish in my net until the next morning. I noticed a fishy smell and discovered a dry, warm, bloated fish in the retrieval net that I leave next to the tank. I feel stupid not noticing something so simple like that. Lesson learned though.

I will post again soon with updates!

Smoothness

The system is running nice and smoothly. No dramas so far. The fish are getting bigger and are becoming ferocious eaters. I am feeding them Aqueon goldfish flakes that I bought at PetCo. They seem to like it.

The tomatoes are weaving well along the chicken wire canopy I have given them. I haven't had to coax them much through the wire. These two plants seem to have vine like qualities and almost weave themselves. I am glad I don't have to harass them as much as I thought I would.

I have recently planted a habanero pepper into the right grow bed just to see how it goes. It would be nice to also fruit a pepper under a fluorescent.

I have added more pictures! The most current photos are at the bottom. Enjoy!

SCROG Added For Tomatoes

I have added a screen (made of 1" chicken wire and 1/2" PVC) above my tomato plants to create a canopy focused near my light. I am going to delicately weave the leaves of my tomato plants along the screen horizontally. I am trying to give the plants the maximum amount of light to their photosynthetic parts. Eventually I hope for the fruit to dangle below the screen for easy picking.

The carrots seem to benefit from this as well.

Up they grow

Time just seems to fly by. I can't believe it has been 10 days since I last posted. My tomatoes are doing great. The two in the system are about 8 inches tall now. They have started to become pungent. Its a nice smell to have indoors I must say. It is new to me because this is my first indoor tomato ever. The other young'ns are shorter and are still just in a rockwool cube. I am going to wait to plant them outside I think. The weather is getting nice and I think since they have had a good start indoors that I should harden them off and see what the sun can do for them. Hopefully they'll do great!

My fish are getting bigger and have had no problems so far. I have yet to add more fish, mainly because I don't wanna shock my community and kill them. I have put some thought into introducing 1-2 fish at a time and slowly increase my population size. Id think this is the more natural way to allow a system to adapt rather than my previous attempts of dumping in numbers of fish. Wish me luck!