Our aquaponics system went through a real test this month. Our family went to Europe for two weeks, which meant Farmer John wasn’t home to constantly babysit the systems every need. Was the system set up well enough to not need constant care? We really didn’t know. There are a number of things that could …
Woo hoo! Spring has arrived and our fish & plants have survived their first winter in the greenhouse. We are starting to switch gears and think about what we would like in the grow beds during the summer months.
Another month has gone by & things are still chuggin’ along in our aquaponics system. The fish continue to grow, although at a slower speed than we were expecting. But, the plants in the grow beds are growing very well.
We are smack dab in the middle of winter, the first for our aquaponics set up. It’s been an extremely mild winter so far, and we aren’t experiencing any problems due to the season. The fish are growing. The plants are growing. All seems well.
We have had a fairly warm December, so we haven’t had issues with things getting too cold in the greenhouse. The aquarium heaters are keeping the water warm for both the plants & fish.
Not a lot of new things are happening in our aquaponics system this month. We’re continuing to let the geraniums, tomatoes & tomatillos grow. Farmer John is still working on the best way to heat the system, since tilapia need at least 70° water and preferrably 80°+.
In the aquaponics system set up in our greenhouse, the tomatoes, tomatillos & tilapia are all doing fine.
A question we get is, “What do you feed your fish?” I think people are concerned because of what other countries tend to feed their tilapia. We don’t feed them undesirable things and we also haven’t broken the bank on the amount of feed we’ve needed to purchase.
We are still working on fine tuning all the details in making our aquaponics system run smoothly. A little at a time we’re figuring it out… then a new problem arises…
Not too many changes or happenings this month in our aquaponics system. The fish and the plants are growing nicely.