Thursday, February 28, 2013

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!



Friday, February 22, 2013

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!



Sunday, February 17, 2013

Growbed update 18/2/2013

Been a long time so I thought I'll do an update on the current state of my system.

First is the fish tank is clean and fish are happy and healthy. I now have 3 juvenile and 3 Tilapia fingerlings plus one fat catfish. No unintended deaths to report. I've increased the duration of the pumps to be on longer but I'll cover that later.

Growbed has been replanted with Habanero plants and seedlings together with some Mints cuttings. Everything is growing rather nicely. I've lost the whole crop of BakChoys to caterpillar attack and decided to replant.

I've also removed the bell siphon so my flood and ebb is totally controlled by the timer for the pump now. I read on the net and finally decided take up on Mahfudz's suggestion to do this. Let's see how the plants like their roots being soaked longer in the nutrient rich water from the fish tank.

Pump now runs for 30 mins and off 30 mins to let the water drain through the bleed holes I have on the outlet pipe. The idea is to let the plant absorb more nutrients during longer soak time. This will also allow more water to pass through my coral bits and hopefully will be able to buffer the PH levels better. Longer pump runs also means that more filtration time for the fish tank water.

The growth you see now on the Habanero plants are from 3 weeks from germinating. I can already see the bigger plants starting to sprout tiny branches!

As always, enjoy the pics!







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