I've been out of town for the past week but I'm home now and can share some updates about my trip, I'll need to write up some stories to post in My site blog here over the next few days but just to wet your appetites...

I visited with Philip Wolf up near Chicago and his home system as well as the new System he has running at We Grow Dreams in West Chicago.

Then we went up to Milwaukee where we attended the tour at Growing Power and later that evening we went…

My systems have normally run fairly high nitrate levels but in the winter when the fish don't eat as much, my nitrate readings do normally drop down into the orange.

Even after removing the bananas, a week of the fish not eating much quickly brings my nitrate levels down into an easily readable range and I suddenly don't feel like my system is too heavily loaded anymore.

I expect that if I didn't have the washed shells in my system (and therefore the high pH)…

So I got some more questions about these indexing valve things so I figured I should go ahead and write a bit more about them. They may not be appropriate for every situation but they do have their place.

Want to sequence the flow of water into your grow beds to only flood one at a time? Want to avoid extra wiring and control electronics? Then consider an aquaponics indexing valve. All that…

Aquaponics Indexing valves.

They are a means to sequentially flood grow beds.

They are purely passive mechanical devices. Only plumbing connected to them.

The flow of water operates the indexing valve. When the flow starts, the valve engages to feed…