Redesigned the 5 gallon fish tank filter. The original system used a combination of NaturAire commercial furnace filter material and three types of rock: red lava, pea gravel and lime stone aggregate sandwiched between the filter medium.

After a week of operation, I decided to re-confirgure the system, removing all the stone material.  It their place I created two  sand filters made out of a pair of my wife's old panty hose legs filled with sand. So now the both the grow bed and fish…

Learned today that the way to control ammonia levels is to stop feeding the fish.  We were overfeeding and that drove ammonia levels really high in the 8+ ppm range (tubes on the left of photo). Taking what I learned in Knoxville, I stopped feeding the fish for two days and the tubes to the right illustrate how depriving the fish for two days dropped…

Made major mistake last nite. Left new tank heater running since it appeared to be keeping temp stable at around 74F. This morning water was too hot. Didn't take time to measure but likely in the 120F range. Immediately started pouring cold tap water in tank. One fish died, others survived near cooler water inlet from NFT system. 

Two huge mistakes on my part. The heater is suspended in the top volume of water, about 5-8 inches below the surface. The temp probe was temporarily siting…

One possible grow medium that might be considered somewhat comparable to Hydroton (expanded clay pebbles imported into the USA from Germany) is Buildex, an expanded shale product produced at a quarry located between St. Joseph, Mo. and Kansas City, which is only about 150 miles south of my location near Omaha, Ne.  The company sent me a 10 pound sample of the material to test. Today, after several weeks of letting a handful of the material sit in pH neutral snow melt (see attached photos), I…