May 2013, Tomatoes added

This will be my second attempt at aquaponics but now with an established system.  I chose some cherry tomato seeds I have planted and used in my container garden.  They were started with the Burpee seed starting kit and rockwool cubes as previously posted.  I planted them about 3-4 inches deep in the clay pebbles.


I planted the two plants in opposite corners of the grow bed.


Here is a view from the front.  The one in back is hidden.


Here are two of the three fish. Funny thing is I had originally bought one gold one, a black/gold and a white/gold. Now in about 6 months they are all gold.

Update, Failure!

My cucumbers never fruited.   Here is a few things of what went wrong.  First I needed to thin out the blossoms to one every 12-18 inches per vine.  Second the blossoms needed hand pollination.  My vines were producing both female(ones with little cucumber) and male ones.

I am not taking this as a total failure though.  The vines grew long and had a couple hundred blossoms on them.  None of the fish died.  The salad greens also flourished.  No bugs or mosquitoes.  So actually for a "proof of concept" design it works as it should. 

Going forward I plan on expanding some of the systems.  Automatic fish feeding, auto water top off and possibly a Arduino controller for light and temp monitoring.  Eventually a pH prob and dousing pump to automatically control pH is planned.  But in the meantime I will be planting some cherry tomatoes.