Things I learned

[Nick Rizzo]

Well this year for me my was all about learning and trying new things. First off Im very happy with the results of my hard work. My tank and grow bed setup has worked well but I can see why having min of 12" grow bed is better than 8". A  lot of my plants got to top heavy with fruit and fell over using stakes has helped but you need the deeper bed to hold the stake. But I got mine to work using my porch railing to hold the plants. I got my system up and running faster by using my grow bed gravel from my inside system. I also learned that you have to have some shade over certain veggie or they just dont grow well.  Fish I haven't had any problem with I have a mix of Gold fish blue grill and other unknown fish (minnows). Peppers  have grown great along with Tomatoes and cukes. I learned that having a bigger sump is better than a smaller one I had to add a lot of water to the system with the older sump tank which was 28 gallon. If it rained it over flowed and if got over 90 degrees I lost to much to evaporation. So I switch out that tank for 100 gallon feed tank and filled it half way. Now I don't have to add water daily and it doesn't over flow with hard rains. Ph has been 7.4 ammonia has been trace. Nitrates and nitrites have been zero might need more fish but I figure by winter the bluegill will be bigger and I will move them to the inside system and the plants seem to be ok with the amount of fish poop they are getting.