Comment

Comment by Kim Romen on January 14, 2014 at 6:58pm

John, Thx for sharing! what a great feeling to have gotten your checklist up to date I"m sure!  Do you thin or move the lettuce or does it do well growing closely like that? 

I was told today that small seeds grow easier in an AP system whereas larger seeds are better to plant in the dome seed starting boxes.  Has anyone found this to be true?  I'd love to get my hands on a list of produce that does well from seed in an AP system and which produce is better grown in a dome seed starting tray first.   

Comment by Kim Romen on January 14, 2014 at 2:32pm

Dr. Brooks, thx for the info!  If u don't mind sharing, what kind of fish do u have or/and is your tank in the ground or large?  I'm curious as to how you are able to get away without heating or insulating.  Thankyou.

Comment by John Malone on January 11, 2014 at 10:25pm

I spent a good morning on the aquaponics and tidied up a lot of loose ends.  Removed the last of the summer vegies from the DWC bed, reseeded where germination failed, leveled off the areas around the beds, cleaned the swirl filter, add some acid...  all the things that have been on the waiting list.   It's good to have the system nearly ready for spring.

I took a bunch of photos which can be seen here: http://goo.gl/8iUOwr

Comment by Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr. on January 9, 2014 at 11:28am

Save the Date:

ASU School of Sustainability Lecture Series
"The Power of Aquaponics"
by: Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr.

STEM education, healthy foods and good jobs will drive Phoenix’s 21st century economy and sustainability holds the key. Join us for a wide-ranging conversation as Dr. George Brooks discusses “The Power of Aquaponics” to address these needs and more.

Date: April 1, 2014
Time: 12:00 - 1:30pm
Location: ASU School of Sustainability

The formal RSVP link to ASU will available within the next month or so.

Comment by Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr. on January 9, 2014 at 4:54am

Hi Kim. 

1. Do u heat your system.

No. We are looking to see how the new system will behave under uncontrolled seasonal conditions.

2. …. feed your fish fish food or do they eat algae, chicken poo.

We use an off the shelf multi-species feed from Rangen we get from our local feed store at 7th ave and Baseline. The system is normally clear water so though some algae is available, it is not the primary food source. Chicken poo we avoid for food safety reasons. Though many swear by it, it is no no in many farm food safety regulations so in anticipation of them being written for aquaponics, we avoid it is well. Beyond safety our logic is that if we can make the  system cost effective on a small scale using a prepared feed, then scale up economics will be much easier. Finally because of the sustainability issues with most prepared feeds and extreme costs of organic feeds we are looking at alternatives that we can produce on site to feed the fish. We are NOT looking atblack soldier flies at this because they would likely not provide enough food when scaled up. We will look at them later however just to validate or invalidate the hypothesis. 

3.  …..do u grow your plants from seed? 

Now that we have a basic seedling process that works, yes. Here is the link to the seeding technique (http://bit.ly/16XR6dk). However, this process is too time consuming for scale up so we are looking for better ways. Also as we experiment with plant species, if we see some interesting starts at a nursery we buy them just to see what they do. 

4. Is your system in a greenhouse or insulated? 

Currently no to both questions. Again looking at performance under seasonal conditions and developing seasonal cropping  recommendations. We do have a greenhouse under construction. Also we are currently experimenting with shade screens. 

P.S. Our is a fish max philosophy meaning what is the minimum number of plants we need to support the maximum number of fish and prawns. We seek to see how much of a complete human diet we can produce for what costs including animal protein. (http://bit.ly/18fwCXy).

Comment by Matt Miskinnis on January 8, 2014 at 3:18pm

kim , whenever you transplant it will shock the plant, so dont worry to much.  I had tomato plants shocked for over two weeks just keep an eye on them. I should add using maxicrop on the roots helps with shock. The cold weather can also stunt growth with tomatoes,  they seem to like warmer weather.  I'll show you my solution when you come over.

Comment by Kim Romen on January 8, 2014 at 1:31pm

I have one large, beautiful looking tomato plant that has only 3 flowers on it.  In the same garden bed I have some lettuce, kale, rosemary, turnip, bell peppers.  all seems to be doing almost as well as the other garden bed.  This one tomato plant is probably the largest.  I have a few tomato plants that came with the used AP when we bought it and pulled a few out of my previous dirt garden.  I think this was one of the plants that came with the system.  could it be due to transplant shock, is it to large for it's own good, or cuz it's a different kind of tomato plant than the others?...  The part that stumps me is it's in the same system and looks like it's doing well, gorgeous, actually, but not flowering. 

my water: 

8.2 ph (talk about going slow with the acid.  i'm not scared of slow!)

.2ish amonia

0 nitrite

2.5ish nitrates

thx, Kim 

Comment by Kim Romen on January 8, 2014 at 1:02pm

Matt, Women can't help but want to make their homes look nice.  :)  Don't do too much for us!  We'll be looking at the AP system not your house!  :)

Comment by Matt Miskinnis on January 8, 2014 at 6:48am

Don't worry, the cleaning needs to be done, because my wife would be "embarrassed" to have people over and see the yard (that's how she puts it anyway) 

Comment by Kim Romen on January 7, 2014 at 8:48pm

Matt.  BTW, pls don't clean for us!  I have 3 youngins and 3 chickens.  There's always a mess somehow.  The kids just got into the bail of straw for example.  Straw all over the back patio right now! 

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