Well, it's been two months between blog posts, but I hope to increase the frequency to monthly and then gradually to weekly.

I bought a house and moved in February, then about a week after we moved, an hailstorm did a lot of damage to the plants in the system.  I'd been holding off on a lot of planting in anticipation of the move, but the ones that survived are doing fine.

Last week I added a third barrel to the fish system.  I still have the same 4 grow beds.…

Haven't had time to do much, but wanted to at least post a pictorial update.



The seedlings are just going crazy.  Fiance had to move the peas away from the other plants so they wouldn't start climbing them.…

That was what Kirsten and I told the participants in our class at the Honolulu Board of Water Supply on the 28th of April.  We told them that Earth Day was the 22 of April but we felt we all should honor the earth every day.  We had given a class on Economical Aquaponics for World Water day.  We were so well received that they had a spill over crowd and we gave another class on the 28th. Mostly the participants are an over 40 group who are very excited about aquaponics.  Some have started…

Aquaponics…

Produced by: Fisheries and Aquaculture Department

Title: Feed & Feeding of fish & Shrimp...

Senior Aquaculturist Aquaculture Development and Coordination Programme

AQUACULTURE DEVELOPMENT AND COORDINATION ROGRAMME ADCP/REP/87/26

UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS

Rome, 1987

An update to my AP system: it's been almost 6 months since I established my system, I see alot of improvements in plant growth as well as the fish. So far I was successful in growing lettuce, pepper cress, green beans and tomatoes. I am experimenting now on growing cucumbers. My AP system is still used for experimental purposes, it is located oudoors on my south East balcony in Santa Barbara area, Southern California, unfortunately it is illegal to grow tilapia here, so I am growing goldfish…

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…

Can't seem to get anything accomplished this week due to all of the rain. Bought 10 bags of Stalite on Saturday and have not been able to rinse them and add them to my grow bed. Maybe later today, since they are forecasting for the rains to subside.

Anxious to get my plants going and finish cycling up my system.

Last Friday, Japan Aquaponics installed their first school system in Yokohama International School - much to the delight of the Year 4 kids who helped us to put it all together and set everything up!  YIS already has a small system running in their cafeteria courtesy of another one of our first client... their chef... and because of that, about a month ago we visited the school and gave a series of classes to about 100 of the children and staff.   …

First the BEST news: we caught the critter!  It's a rat.  Cute little bugger, but doesn't need to be in my garden.  I asked fiance to drive him to somewhere with a field and drop him off.  I don't feel any urge to punish him for being a rat, I just don't want him eating my veggies any more.…

I am pleased to announce progress on our system. This week I managed to buy, rinse and re-rinse lava rock for  2/3rds of our grow bed and tomorrow will be buying 10 bags of Stalite for the top grow bed layer.



The water has been cycling for a week now and has cleared nicely and I think I may net some local canal fish on Sunday to put in the tank to see if they can survive before purchasing my mating tilapia.

I am still not clear on when ammonia should be added to my system?…

Trying to get our new system up and running. Had to make a decision yesterday. We could not afford pond lined for our grow beds just yet. I used a new tarp I had laying around and put visqueen over that. I know this will not hold. If I can get one year out of it I will be happy. Yes this means I will have to dig it all out. I just did not want to miss our growing season for this year.

     Ok, so its spring time and I've started building my system!  I've been building this thing for a month now, and it's still not ready.  What the hell was I thinking!!! Back breaking labor and $1k in parts and supplies!  This must be an addiction.  I'm just glad my wife doesn't realize how much I've spent on this little project.  If she ever figures it out, I'll be sleeping in my grow bed!

     Ok, ok.  Enough whining.  So here's the update,  I've laid the gravel bed where I'll set…

First, check out the fish!  This was feeding time today:

There is a large vacant lot near my home and I have messaged the owner (over snail mail because she lives in Hawaii) to see if she will let CityBounty.org tend it for her this season.  If she says yes we will be able to grow food on it to sell CSA style to get capital to start all of our projects and get our non profit status.  It is a very exciting possibility.

So I am trying to think of the best way to grow food in that space.  We could do traditional gardening but I don't have time…

Finally got everything running in our aquaponics setup. Here are some pictures and details.

Fish tank: 110 gallons (has about 90 gallons of water)

Grow Bed: 2'x8'x10"

Pump: Mag 7 (700 gph)

Got a greenhouse from Lowes because I have too many pests here (mainly the chicken)…

we need to keep people talking about this. please go to the facebook page and like it and pass it on. FB/branson aquaponic garden and educational center.…

Hi everyone! This week I started my project of the first aquaponic. I was grow beans before in the soil. I've included in the system. Lettuce seeds are growing too. There are 8 cichlid fish tank. Need to increase this number. Everything is ok now. I hope you'll be successful and be able to move on larger systems.

What an exciting event this has been.  Thanks to the work of Rick Stillwagon . . . things are happening.

Once he had spent some time on site and some measurements were taken, he went back to Roy, Washington and sent us e-mails with plans on what we needed to get done, while he started building the greenhouse.

We leveled the area, closed it in with 8"x6" treated wood and insulated with 2" styrofoam, then sand. …

and we are still somewhat on schedule ...

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