Non aquaponics - bench with growbed full of lettuce in Insadong, Seoul

Found this cool bench with a growbed full of lettuce in Insadong, Seoul. They're lucky I've had lunch!

Growbed update 26/5/13

Quick update on my rebooted aquaponics system. The growbed now enjoys much much more direct sunlight. The habanero plants are recovering from the shock. The tomato and eggplant plants are growing very very nicely. I am getting more LECA this weekend to convert the system to a constant flow growbed and nore more NFT. More pictures later.

Aquaponics system reboot in progress

I've been working on rebooting my Aquaponics system, moving away from NFT to growbed system. I took the opportunity of the reboot to move the growbed to a place that enjoys full sunlight. Now I need to get ahitload of LECA!

Aquaponics habanero flowering

First flower bud of the aquaponics habanero plant has open and some new buds are maturing nicely. Hope to get some peppers soon!

Aquaponics tower in the making

This is going to be an interesting project. The goal is to have an ecstatically pleasing piece for the front yard that is also functional.

My plan is to have like an outer vase around the tower to hide the white pipe. The media is going to be LECA but the whole structure will need to be weighted down with some heavy pebbles to avoid it from tipping over.

I'll be working on this piece for the next few weekends and I am very excited to see how this goes!

3inches of growth in 1 week!

The Habanero plants are really taking off! I estimated 3 inches of growth on the biggest plant after I week from my last posting!

The other seeds I sow did not show signs of germinations yet however some tomato and eggplant seeds I sow indoor have started to sprout!

System update 22/2/2013

A little update because I would like to record this interesting observation I saw on some of the changes I did to the system.

In previous entry I mentioned that I removed the bell siphon and run the flood and ebb strictly on time. The system is flooded for 30 minutes and let to bleed out to dry for another 30mins. I started noticing that the yellowing on the leaves associated with iron deficiency has immediately disappeared.

There's probably 2 causes of this. First being the longer flood time without the water being siphoned out means the roots are able to absorb more nutrients or the second cause is the longer pump running sends more water to the swirl filter this removes more waste and allows the coral bits to break down and buffer the PH better.

I am starting to see some little branches coming out of the Habanero plants and the mints are growing very well too. I sow some seeds and added more Tilapia fingerlings. Can't help it! Hope it won't burden the system too much!