Sweet Banana, Green and Jalapeno Peppers

     Saturday I added the breeding tank underneath the grow bed and three pepper plants!  

 I've got the sweet banana pepper, a green bell and a jalapeno plant getting used to their new location.  The heirloom tomato is doing really well growing new leaves and branches.  Growing a few buds as well!  My banana pepper came with three buds on it so hopefully they don't drop off and I can get some peppers soon! I harvested the red bell pepper off to let the plant focus of getting it's leaves back and growing larger.  The pepper was bruised and dried out on top anyway.  I lost my onion due to being too deep in the water.  I cut a tip off to taste it and the next days later It started wilting a lot.  I was curious and was pulling it up to see how deep it was and the whole top just came off.  The stock was just a mushy jelly.  I was experimenting with some baby carrots that turned out to be like the mushy onion. I planted them half in the water with just their tops showing I checked them when I checked the onion.  Live and learn, work on that green thumb!

 I went to Lowes's and got a 50 gallon tote to build this breeding tank it's kinda flimsy I had to zip tie the lid on for a support to keep it together.  I hope it lasts a while.  I had a problem with the tank filling too quickly, and I spent all night sunday trying to figure out a way to regulate the water flow into the tank while still having the siphon work normally. I ended up with what you see in this picture above with some of the water going off into the tank and a majority just going into the sump.  The water in the tank is being replaced about every three hours with this set up. Now I'm waiting for these guys bellow to grow a bit larger so I can start breeding.  I put a couple 4" PVC pipes 6" long to give them somewhere to hide from each other.  They seem to be constantly chasing each other around.

Five Tilapia, Duckweed and String Algae

Today I was searching for aquaponic groups in Mesa and I found Garden Pool. They were featured on the news a while back because they turned an empty pool into a green house with a pond in the deep end.  I got to check it out today when I bought the Tilapia and plants from them.  I got them at 5:00 pm and have had them in a five gallon bucket this whole time letting the water temp slowly rise and periodically adding some of my aquaponic water to their water.  It's been 7 hours, the fish have been snacking on duckweed and having a bubble bath.  The 27 feeder fish that I was trying to put in my system all died in three days.  I put the bag of fish into my fish tank to let the water temp match up and it changed too quickly killing all of them rather quickly.  So hopefully these fish are as resilient to changes in temperature and water quality as they're supposed to be. 

My camera battery is died and I cannot find the charger... I really wanted to show you the changes I've made to grow the string algae and duckweed.  

Please continue to follow my blog and +1 me!  Thank you for reading!  Also, please follow the link on the top to Garden Pool.org!

Blog Day 2

Last night I decided to bring the two survivors in. I had two 5 gallon buckets that were all ready to go with a nice water temperature of 75 degrees. They seemed pretty happy to be in an ice bath after boiling for a day and seeing all their buddies die. I used to have lids covering both my fish tank and sump I took the lid off of the fish tank this morning before I went to work, and came home to the water at 96 degrees. I noticed that my sump air temp was pretty high while I was taking some pictures of the system, so I decided to take that lid off too.

My two minnows are still kickin' it; I'm worried that they are starving because I have not seen them eat anything.  I tried feeding them fish flakes but they had no interest. 

Here are the pictures I captured this afternoon:

 Grow bed is 6'x2'x10", 55 Gallon fish tank and 30 gallon sump.

 I used all 1" PVC piping. 

 My lava rock media growing some moss.

 My siphon would not work without this elbow.

94 degrees!  Woohoo!