What I Think...

Over two month now, I think I should document what I have done right and what is done wrong...I think.

Done right...I think:

1. Stones in the fish tank - I put white stones in the fish tank because my tank is black so I can't clearly see the darker fish. It is similar to what I use in the grow bed, only much bigger in size. The stones promote phytoplankton (green algae) growth providing more food for the fish. It also provide place for nitrosomonas bacteria to hang out which helps breaking the waste that settled at the bottom of the tank. Seeing the fish nibble on the stones is common in my system.
2. Pump with variable pressure - with no experience, you might need to experiment on water in and water out from the grow bed to get the automatic syphon working, this kind is invaluable.

Done wrong...I think:

1. Fish count - I should have bought more fingerling when I started this project. They will provide more waste to the grow bed thus could mature it faster. However when the fish grew, I might need to move them into separate tank(s) to avoid over crowd. Less/ smaller fish caused slower grow bed maturity.
2. Different kind of fish - weeelll this could be right depending on what you have in mind, and that was on my mind too when I first planned this. I want a mix of edible fish and ornamental fish at the same time. But I found out that some fish should never be mixed. Tilapia can be gruesome at times, especially on weak and smaller fish. DON'T mixed them unless with bigger fish. They even nibble on my one year old son's fingers when he put his hand in the tank.
3. Pre filter - I should have wait for the grow bed to mature because of (1) above. Then only it is suitable to start using pre filter.
4. Using pebbles in grow bed - you might found many people using pebbles with no problem. BUT it actually depends on where you live AND where you set up your system at home. I live in tropical country, we get over 300 days of sunlight a year and my system is exposed to the sun from as early as 7 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon. The sun goes down around 7. Imagine how hot the pebbles is going to get even with shades.

That is all I can think of for now. I will update this post when I can think of something else.

Patin Extinct

While feeding my fish this morning before I left for work, I noticed the white patin is lifeless at the bottom of the tank. It was still alive yesterday evening but refused to surface to feed which I thought unusual. So there must be a disease or something that only affect this kind of fish. Patin has smooth skin unlike other fish in the tanks, the others are scaly type. I'll check the tank thoroughly today to see if there is any abnormality to the other fish. No more patin left. Farewell my friend.

UPDATE 21/11/12: I checked the tank yesterday and found nothing is wrong. However one of the Koi has two grey spots on its back, not sure if it is infection or just the natural colour of the scale. I will monitor that one closely.

Amazing Growth and Another Death

I think I'm gonna dump that shitty blogger app. This is the second time I need to type my post again. I made an entry last night but the app hanged on publishing until now and I can't recover the post.

AAaannyway...I'm glad to announce that the plants are all growing at a really amazing rate, especially the pak choy. 2 weeks in the bed and their size is equal to the 2 months old pak choy I planted when I first started this project. Check it out!

HOWEVER on Saturday morning I discovered my patin is dead. It died and got sucked by the pump thus the exposed gut. Other than that this fish looks fine to me so I can't determine the cause of death. It didn't show any sign of dying at all.  Probably it missed its friend that died last week.

Rest in piece my friend (even though if you grow I'm gonna eat you somehow you are still my friend).

Is it two month already?

Yes. How time flies. I was so busy with work last week to even do anything on my system...other than feeding the fish. It was raining in the evening till night all week long. The monsoon season is finaly here. Monsoon means none stop torential rain like the in the Forest Gump.

Anyway. Saturday morning was sunny so I fed my fish like the usual. I noticed my red tailed patin is swimming alone. There are two of them and they normally swim together. I checked the tank, the pump, ever nooks and cranies can't see any dead fish. I thought they escaped through the overflow hole so I cut a little piece of stainless steel net I have in my store room and jammed it down the hole. Done. But wait. What is that white thingy between the rocks? See for yourself. Devastated really to find only bones left. I have no idea when it died. The rain might probably save the others from ammonia poisoning. Lucky.

Further checking only to find another tilapia is missing. Probably dead too. One of those smaller ones. So total fish dead to date is three. 16 fish left.

System update at 2 month. Algae seems to be under control. The fish really like them. Water does not smell thanks to the rain. The kesum I replanted last week is doing well. The same goes to pak choy. Their growth rate was amazing as compared to the first batch of pak choy. Sign of grow bed matured maybe? And their leaves are green too! I found something is eating the kesum and pak choy leaves. I caught the bugger ref handed the next day. Now he is fish food...

Looking at the system, I regained confident and sown a few ocra and cucumber seeds directly in the grow bed. I also sown kailan in my seeding pots as their seeds are too small. All seeds courtesy of my mom.

Update 14/11/12: Wow I really have to proof read before posting using my blogger app. Even the pictures are tilted :p...

Re-Planted Kesum & Pak Choy

It was raining in the evening for over a week now. The fish get fresh water everyday and they look happy but not my kesum. All the leaves turned brown despite the cool weather. So yesterday I pulled all of them out. To my surprise they even grow new leaves under the surface, in between the pebbles! But somehow still failed to grow green.

I replanted the kesum just now. I planned to do it in the evening if it is not raining but it rained and just stopped. I replanted my 3 weeks old pak choy too. Hopefully they will survive this time.