Still Kickin'

Well, after 5 days away for work, I have returned to find that the AP system is still running and that both fish are still alive and kicking. The plants also have grown with new seedlings having sprouted as well! What a relief! The Arugula continues to thrive with my whole second row having sprouted and growing well. The first row actually starting to look like arugula. The lettuce continues to grow as well, though slower.



The tomatoes have also made progress, the new growth from last week is beginning to look healthy. They were looking a bit yellow as they were coming up, but they are beginning to get a good green color.


We got back from work significantly early today due to weather leaving me enough time to run to Durango for additional goldfish. More fish= more food for the plants which means (hopefully) quicker plant growth and higher yield. If you will remember, my Nitrate levels were at zero last week meaning that ALL of the possible plant food was being consumed which indicates that they can and want to consume more. I purchased 15 of the finest 25 cent feeder gold fish that the city of Durango had to offer and quickly zoomed home to get them in the tank. I also purchased a small fish bowl to act as a holding tank for additional gold fish while I figure out how many my system can hold, and to act as a holding facility if I need to do any work in my fish tank. It also spruces up the Tiny Mansion!



I did a fish tank overhaul today when I returned from my venture to the "big city". After I had intentionally set up my fish tank, complete with gravel on the bottom, I read that in most AP systems gravel is not used. This is because it catches solid wastes which once built up to a certain level, can actually become harmful to the fish and thus you need to clean it. Instead of cleaning it every month, I decided to take it out completely and replace it with some extra PVC I had lying around, giving the fish ample things to hide in, under and around.


When I removed all of the gravel, it stirred up a whole lot of debris and clouded the water pretty good. Before putting fish back into the tank I strained out the big chunks, and let the pump run two full cycles to clean up the water a bit. It quickly cleared.

Before putting the new fish into the tank, I put them all in my new fish bowl (see above) and slowly acclimated them to the fish tank water by adding cups of water from the tank every hour or so. I also salted the fish tank to 3 ppt in an attempt to kick any nasty diseases that the fish from the store may be carrying. This also boosts their immune system. Hopefully this batch of fish will fare better than the last. If these fish die off, I will begin to investigate further whether or not the gravel in my grow bed is leaching bad things into the water. Hopefully it won't come to that.

Once I did the gravel removal, I tested the water and everything looks good. The Ammonia levels were up a bit, but this is likely due to the amount of unprocessed excrement that I stirred up while removing the gravel. The PH has slowly been going down, and is now a solid 7.8 which is a good level.

Before leaving for the week, I decided to make a poor mans reflector for my grow lights in hopes of enhancing the amount of light that actually reaches the plants. I did this my draping strips of aluminum foil over the tops of the lights. By doing this I have reflected the light that was escaping out of the sides back into the grow bed. It makes a visible difference, I hope my plants appreciate it. I will be working on a more permanent reflector here soon.



All is well here, hopefully the fish will remain healthy and begin producing mass amounts of food for my food!