6 month of aquaponics
Someone warned me that it would take a year for my aquaponics system to become fully operational and stable. The ecosystem has to grow and find balance and that simply takes time. So I already expected some issues to occur and they did…
Plants
Some of the issues that I encountered so far: The tomatoes got brown spots on their old leaves and slowly died, the leaves of the cauliflower look unhealthy (light green with dark veins), the zucchini kept making flowers, but no zucchini… Last but not least the plants in general did not seem to grow that much.
Except for the strawberry which grew a lot and now produces extremely sweet and tasty strawberries. This strawberry helped me to keep faith in aquaponics.
After studying a bit I realized that the strawberry may be thriving because it is naturally a type of plant that likes poor soil. (Especially this type.) Whereas the zucchini needs a lot of food, all the time.
There is another plant that seems to be doing ok: my little thyme. I only planted that a month ago, but it seems to be doing great.
Testing the water
Another thing I did was buy a huge watertesting kit. I wanted to make sure my potassium, iron, nitrate, PH, ammonia and oxygen were all within boundaries.
The water was extremely clean, healthy and entirely lacking any traces of nitrates, ammonia and iron.
The lack of iron was expected and remedied with some chelated iron I had lying around for my aquarium. The other deficiencies meant only one thing though… I needed more fish!
Fish
There were no issues with the fish so far. Except for one goldfish turning white and me not noticing the automatic feeder was stuck on an error for several days… No-one died, and it was easily fixed but there’s a lesson there!
So the nutrient levels in the water showed that my 25 gold fish were not producing enough ammonia. Their pooping couldn’t keep up with the thriving colony of nitrifying bacteria now living in the grow beds. And whatever those bacteria produced in fertilizer was immediately devoured by the plants. At least, that is my theory. ;)
So now I acquired 60 catfish.
60? Yes 60.
I read somewhere that 30 would have been enough, but due to me ordering a slightly higher amount of fishes (in case some would die) in combination with the fish supplier adding some fish (in case some would die) I ended up with 60…
Oh well… haha. :)
For now the fishes have plenty room. Besides I learned that a catfish is happier and more calm when confined to a smaller space with a whole bunch of catfish buddies. It makes them act like a “herd” instead of quarrel over territory.
By the way, I need to mention that, since I was not able to retrieve the fishes myself, my lovely and brave parents volunteered to do it for me. My mom and dad drove hundreds of kilometres with a big bag of fish wedged in a bucket between my moms feet, challenged by muddy tracks, oil depletion and me telling them the wrong address… How incredibly selfless and supporting can a parent be? To get 60 catfish for their daughter and hoal them across The Netherlands?
Awesome indeed.
Harvest
So far we ate a lot of strawberries. My boys love them! And on occassion we use herbs from the aquaponics for cooking. We have chives, thyme and coriander growing in it.
The basil was not growing as much as I’d hoped and looked a bit unhappy. So yesterday we decided to have merci on the struggling plant and turn all leaves into a happy batch of fresh yummy pesto!
Looking forward to more harvest later.
Winter is coming
Fall is starting and I’m getting slightly worried about the approaching cold of winter. When I first started building my system I always assumed that I would wrap it all with some isolating material and box it up with wood. There are plenty examples of pretty aquaponics systems that are covered in wood.
But now I’m not so sure anymore. We have come to like the way it looks and the bare cages containing the IBC’s are fun for the children to climb on.
Still I don’t want the plants or fish to get hurt by the cold, or my system to break down from water freezing in the wrong places. So my next challenge is to get the system ready for winter somehow, without covering it all up. Or maybe by covering it up temporarily.
Any suggestions or inspiration would be welcome. Here’s the picture I used last time, it is still sort of accurate.
