It has been a few months since I last posted about our aquaponics system. I am happy to report there haven’t been any major problems with the system in general. The fish are swimming, the plants are growing.

Grow Bed #1

Back in April we planted bush beans, romaine, and kale in this grow bed. They all grew well and we enjoyed them for a couple months.

The other day, though, I ripped nearly everything out of this grow bed. With a clean slate, I will replant soon.

Grow Bed #2

This bed is primarily out of control tomatoes.

Tomatoes don’t love lots of water, so I don’t recommend growing them in an aquaponics setup. They tend to be mushier than tomatoes grown in good ol’ dirt. We do pick ’em and eat them, though. One day I even picked enough to make a nice batch of marinara.

Eventually we’ll take them out. But they grow well, which is good for the ecology of our set up, so they stay.

Grow Bed #3

This bed has 2 different items growing in it. One of them is an Asian eggplant. It is actually the same plant Farmer John planted last year. It is doing very well. I adore the purple flowers. Many of the eggplant are ripe and ready to be picked.

The other thing in this grow bed are Mexican sour gherkins. They continue to grow like crazy. I’m sure the vines would be happy to take over the entire greenhouse if we let them.

Aquaponics + Mexican sour gherkins = a good combination.

Clean Up

The harvesting is fun. The clean up – not so much.

Having out of control tomato vines next to even more out of control gherkin vines has resulted in a tangled mess. I gave them both a good trim the other day. But, it should be done more often.

This is a root mass growing around the pipes. Not a good situation and a bit difficult to clean up.

Wild Things

Snakes. An entire colony of snakes have decided to make their home in the greenhouse.

I am not a snake enthusiast, but we have an unspoken agreement. They leave me alone, I leave them alone.

They are rude guests who don’t clean up after themselves.

One snake thought it would be fun to explore the pipes. Not a wise decision. He got caught in the pump.

Tilapia

We primarily feed our tilapia pelleted fish food. Sometimes they get duck weed, and occasionally other greens.

Sitting on the bottom of the tank are sections of pvc pipe. The tilapia like to hide in them.

In the next few months we’re talking about changing some things in the system. The ecology seems to be in good productive order, so I don’t want to mess with it too much. But, there are a few things that could be done differently. We will iron out all the details and get to work…

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Nothing has changed in the aquaponics system. The only new additions are a bunch of plants enjoying the greenhouse conditions.

Outside

Grow Bed #1

The first grow bed has left over swiss chard and one pepper plant. They are there mainly because we needed plants growing over the winter and they are doing alright, so they stayed to help out the aquaponics ecosystem.

Bush beans, kale and romaine seedlings are newly planted right in the grow bed.

A few herbs and tomato seedlings in pots are placed on the grow bed simply because I want them in the greenhouse and we don’t have much shelf space. So, they are sitting in the grow bed for a short time.

Grow Bed #2

This grow bed also has leftover plants from last year – kale and tomato.

I’m also using this bed as a shelf to hold herbs and tomato starts in pots.

Grow Bed #3

Bed number 3 only has plants from last year – sour gherkins and eggplant. Both are producing new goodies for us to eat.

Growing in the Greenhouse

Scattered throughout the greenhouse are even more herbs, veggies, tomato, and flower starts.

Tilapia

The tilapia are doing their daily routine of swimmin’, eatin’, and poopin’.

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The months of January and February have been slow in the greenhouse. It’s not really a bad thing. It’s nice to have some down time. This also means we haven’t had any problems, which is great.

Outside the Greenhouse

We did get a hole in the greenhouse plastic. But a quick patch job fixed it, for now. When Farmer John built the greenhouse he knew this plastic wouldn’t last forever, but it’s what we had so it’s what he used. Soon it will be time to do something more permanent.

In the Grow Beds

Most of the plants in the grow beds are past their prime, so the last couple months we haven’t harvested much.

The kale is coming back nicely, though.

We planted seeds of a few items that will eventually end up in the grow beds.

Tilapia

The tilapia appear to be doing well.

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The big news this month is that we finally harvested a couple tilapia!
We’ve been waiting a year and a half for this day.
It’s been a fun learning experience growing produce in our aquaponics system. But, the thing I’ve been most looking forward to is getting to eat a fish.

As exciting (and yummy) as it was to eat this fella. He’s really not all that big for being in the tank for a year and a half. He only weighed about half a pound. Statistically he should have been 2 – 3 pounds by now.

I have two theories on why our fish aren’t growing as quickly as we expected. One – We aren’t feeding them enough. Or two – Their water is slightly too cold for optimal growth. This breed tends to grow larger in year round warm water.

Farmer John fried one fish for lunch. We fried the other for dinner. One small fish for a family of five wasn’t exactly an over abundance, but we made it stretch and enjoyed every bite.

We shredded up the fish fillets for tacos. Because we needed more protein for our tacos, I also diced and sauteed homegrown chicken.

One of my favorite meals just got better.
I could eat street style tacos for weeks and not get tired of them. I always make them with chicken. Now I can enjoy them with tilapia, too.

These tacos are so simple to make and so delicious. I always eat too many.

Ridgetop’s Chicken or Fish Street Style Tacos

• corn tortillas (fried in vegetable oil for about 30 seconds on each side)
• chicken (sauteed in vegetable oil and taco seasoning)
• fish (we used tilapia fillets, fried in butter)
• lettuce (chopped)
• shredded cheese (we like cheddar or jack)
• black olives (sliced)
• salsa (we use homemade, but whatever you like will work)

I can’t express enough how thrilled I am to harvest these fish. It is very rewarding to feed my family in this way.

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The aquaponics system seems to be in a self sufficient state right now. We had one little snafu, but for the most part it’s been running smoothly this month.

In the Grow Beds

The greenery in the grow beds is still going strong. However, the produce production has slowed down.

Uh oh, the fish are behaving differently

For a couple days, I noticed the fish just hanging out near the bottom of the tank. No swimming about. No rushing to the top when I dropped food in the tank. That’s weird. They always come splashin’ to the top when it’s time to eat.

Eventually, I figured out that the outlet the heater was plugged into wasn’t working. The water got down to 60°, which is almost too cold for tilapia. They started to slow down to compensate for the cold water.

I’m so glad I caught it in time. Had the water reached 50°, the fish probably wouldn’t have survived.

Tilapia

After a near mishap, the fish recovered and were swimming and eating like their normally do.

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October has been a slow month in the greenhouse, which is not bad. Everything has been operating as it should, no problems with the fish or the grow beds. And, amazingly enough, we haven’t made any changes.

The grow beds look much the same as they did last month.

Mexican sour gherkins and grape-sized tomatoes continue to produce.

A bit of rain has finally come our way. But, it causes no issues within the greenhouse.

There is not much to report this month. But, I’m not complaining. I’m thrilled the system is working well with little effort on our part.

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Our aquaponics system continues to thrive, even through a little mishap we had early in the month.

IN THE GROW BEDS

Peppers, tomatoes, swiss chard & okra are all doing well.

The back grow bed is going wild & crazy with two types of produce: Eggplants & Mexican Sour Gherkins. They love it there. We are picking Sour Gherkins by the handfuls daily.

AERATOR

This isn’t new, but I don’t remember posting about it.
In the main fish tank is a simple aerator. It is a piece of tubing with small holes in it. One end of the tubing is connected to an air compressor, the other end is placed in the fish tank.

TILAPIA

The tilapia are doing well. However, there was an incident.

The pump quit working. I’m not exactly sure how long it wasn’t working. Not longer than 24 hours. But, even just a couple hours could have been harmful to the fish. The aquaponics system depends on the water being moved from the fish tanks to the grow beds and back. It moves fish waste out and plant nutrients in. In our set up, it also adds a bit of aeration to the tanks.

Thank goodness the tilapia’s odd behavior clued me in that something wasn’t right. I’m sure I would have figured it out anyway, but my first clue were the fish. Many of them were near the top of the tank, taking little gulps of air. They don’t ever hang out at the top.

I started looking around and sure enough the water wasn’t moving. My heart sunk. Farmer John was gone for the week and I am not mechanical.

I was worried about the fish. They were stressed and in need of oxygen. The aerator wasn’t hooked up. About a week prior, we poured concrete in the Man Shack, which is where the air compressor had been. The air compressor had been moved and wasn’t set back up, so the aerator wasn’t running.

Now to find the problem. Eventually, I figured out that it was the pump. It was still getting power, but for some reason wasn’t pumping water. Thankfully, we had another pump. There are a lot of variables to setting it up, so I called our friend and he helped me get it going.

Problem solved. And, no fish seemed to be harmed by the ordeal.

CHANGES & UPDATES

In July, I wrote about a new pump Farmer John put in the aquaponics system. It worked great. But… it still wasn’t exactly what he wanted. It moved a lot of water, but it was loud and used quite a bit of electricity.

So, he found this smaller pump at Home Depot and installed it. It seemed to work ok. But, it made an obnoxiously loud high pitch sound for a small pump. Not long after we got it, Farmer John was saying how he wondered if something was wrong with it.

This was the pump that went out while he was gone. I’d say he was correct in thinking something was wrong. The pump went on the fritz after only having it about a month.

Now it’s back to the pump he got in July.

I’m thankful for another successful month with our aquaponics venture. I’d prefer a less eventful month where everything works as it should. But I’m happy to be eating fresh, homegrown produce and that all the fish survived the pump failure.

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Our aquaponics system appears to be in good shape. The plants are growing well and look good. The fish are growing and we haven’t had any floaters. The nitrite and ammonia levels are at 0, so the biological filter is working well. Since installing a larger pump last month the water clarity has improved. All is well, at the moment.

CHANGES & UPDATES

Farmer John is constantly improving our aquaponics system. His newest addition is making floating beds for growing lettuce in its own separate, smaller system. He cut a barrel in half for the floating beds and will use an old aquarium tank for the fish.

IN THE GROW BEDS

The Mexican Sour Gherkins have taken Okra’s spot as our top producer this month. There are hundreds of the little guys growing in those vines.

Left: However, the okra is still producing well.
Right: We’re still getting red tomatoes from the scraggly, old tomato plant.

Ripe for the picking this month are eggplant & peppers. I love these guys. As far as produce goes, I think they’re gorgeous.

BUGS

A variety of bugs enjoy the greenhouse, too.

TILAPIA

Most of the tilapia are in the main fish tank now and are continuing to grow. They also continue to be difficult to photograph.

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The aquaponics system is performing well. The produce is growing like crazy. And more exciting is that a few of the tilapia are nearly large enough to eat. It seemed to take forever for the little guys to grow, but in the last month or two they’ve really grown a lot.

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CHANGES & UPDATES

Our aquaponics system has gone through many changes as we continue to figure out what works best. This month was no different. Two changes have happened over the last few weeks.

Left: To increase our water flow, Farmer John installed a new pump, which seems to be a good addition.
Right: The black bag is filled with oyster shells, with the white pipe flowing water consistently through it. We continue to struggle with the ph of our water, hopefully this helps at least a little.

IN THE GROW BEDS

All the grow beds are doing well. Woo hoo!

Okra is by far our best producer. We’re getting okra everyday and the plant has nearly grown to the top of the greenhouse.

Left: The Mexican Sour Gherkins went a little wild, so Farmer John added twine for the vines to climb.
Right: Tomatoes. This is the craziest tomato plant. We put it in the grow bed last summer and it has been producing ever since.

Left: Eggplant
Right: Peppers

Left: The lettuce is doing so-so.
Right: The little section where the lettuce is planted has a lot of mineral deposit growth. Good or bad, I’m not sure.

BUGS

Bees love the greenhouse and all the plants. I don’t blame them; it’s a warm, fabulous place to hang out. One special day, though, I spotted a green dragonfly casing the joint.

TILAPIA

We finally bought a decent net and Farmer John moved most of the tilapia from the lower tank up to the main fish tank.

The main fish tank
They’re kind of difficult to see, but many of the fish in this tank are finally getting big!

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It’s official. Our aquaponics system has been up & running for a year now. We haven’t tried the tilapia yet, but hopefully soon. We have, though, eaten many tomatoes and picked many bunches of lettuce. It’s proven to be a fabulous way to overwinter geraniums. Slowly we are figuring out how to make the system more efficient & what grows best. Kale, for instance, doesn’t do great. The warm water and warm temperatures in the green house are not fit for kale. Tomatoes, though, love it.

TILAPIA

The tilapia finally seem to be growing. We have had them for a year & most tilapia growers would have harvested them by now. However, ours just aren’t big enough. I’m not certain, but I have hunch that we weren’t feeding them quite enough. We’ve been feeding them more and they’re growth is improving, so hopefully it won’t be long until we get to taste one of them in a fish taco.

IN THE GROW BEDS

The first grow bed still has a couple geraniums adding summer color & also swiss chard that needs picking.

By far, our craziest grow bed is the middle one. Tomatoes, okra & lettuce are creating a jungle space.

The last grow bed has vining Mexican Sour Gherkins & eggplant starts.

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