Third Month Update

My system reached 3 months old last Friday. And I made my first harvest of pak choi! The feeling is just unbelievable because I barely look after it, I just feed the fish. If I were to plant it conventional way, on the ground, I probably won't be able to harvest yet, or worse even grow it. I'm glad I didn't hesitate to start this project. Now I can't wait for the fish to grow to a palatable size!

As you can see there in the grow bed, I just planted the mint given by my mom and daun sup (daun saderi), a species of parsley. What you can see is what it has become after just a week in the bed. I planted it from root cutting leftover from our kitchen. I also planted spring onion but it is on the far right of the bed and refused to enter the frame, a bit shy maybe...and look at my kesum, finally no more white and dead young leaves. Amazing really.

How about the fish? they all are doing just fine in the tank. Getting fresh water from the rain everyday. In fact, ever since I started this project I changed the water only once on week one because it was too smelly. Never see any reason to change the water till date.

Nutrients and Plants

I'm a bit busy (again) this week (but who doesn't?). Nothing special is done to my system during the weekend as I was away to pick up my kids at my mom's place. My mom gave me a bunch of mint to be planted and so I divided it into a few cuttings and one cutting goes into the grow bed. The others I planted in my special strawberry planter which I didn't use to plant strawberry.

Anyway the reason for this post is to share what I found on the internet. I've been googling about nutrient for plants as my pak choi has difficulty to get green leaf, despite healthy. Look what I found from a company that supplies fertilizers in the US (NACHURS): about NITROGEN

"Nitrogen serves as the source for the dark green color in the leaves of various crops. This is a result of a high concentration of chlorophyll.  Nitrogen combined with high concentrations of chlorophyll utilizes the sunlight as an energy source to carry out essential plant functions including nutrient uptake."

There you have it. Looks like my system is still not mature enough as the plants show difficulty to get greener leaf.

"Nitrogen deficiency shows up in the yellowing or chlorosis of the plant leaves.  The yellowing will start in the oldest leaves, and then will proceed to develop on younger leaves if the deficiency continues."

My system don't have the above problem, so the level of insufficiency of nitrogen could be low. A good guide for those into gardening and have no idea what is going on in their plants: Micronutrient Deficiencies

And the role of micronutrients.

Hope this'll help.

Pak Choi Update

Look at this!

as compared to my post over 2 weeks ago  HERE. However, the leaves are not green despite looking healthy...what is wrong?

Oh and yes you might notice the kesum changed place. Actually the replanted ones are having the same problem as the first batch. So I replanted again. The seeds provided by my mom didn't germinate at all. Weird. So I'm gonna try again.

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...