Theme changes, and commenting system changes

As you may have noticed, I've changed the theme, the old one was rather slow to load. Comments are of course, as always welcome. I have changed the commenting settings, to be more liberal, hopefully it should work (and not attract spammers)

Apologies for lack of updates, here's what you missed.

So we had a fairly eventful 2 weeks. Jared's left for Australia, so it is just me and Sam here at the moment. The original pump failed and couldn't be fixed. As it turns out, this is to be expected from running a bilge pump continuously. So me and Sam forked out  $140 for a submersible pump designed for continuous use. The peas have started to flower, and the plants in the grow bed have really taken off! A botched attempt to fix the sump tank necessitated a complete drainage and removal of it. It was rather tricky to find a suitable container large enough to hold the water needed to fit the water drained out of the grow bed as it cycles. Thankfully recycling had been through and as such the recycling bin was empty. Our use of the recycling bin is almost definitely against Christchurch City Council bylaws ;).

Sam attempting to fix the original pump

The state of the peas

The state of the lettuce

The state of the tomatoes

Attempting repairs on liner

The recycle bin being used temporarily as a sump tank while we fixed the liner

New domains, a new wiki, and a jammed pump

This morning when I checked the grow bed, I found the pump was not pumping! I disassembled the pump, and removed the blockage.

The blockage

By this time alas, the plants were looking pretty displeased by the situation.

Displeased plants

However, after restoring water supply, and flooding the bed by inhibiting the flushing mechanism, The plants appeared to come right.

Today I also set up the new aquaponics wiki (wiki.aquaponatronics.org) in order to document our efforts in more detail. At the same time I set up a slightly shorter domain for accessing this blog : blog.aquaponatronics.org .

PS:
If any of our lovely readers would like to edit or contribute to the wiki, send me an email at:
<my name>@ehmish.net

Fertiliser, pole patching and kelp

Results of dramatically increasing fertiliser dosage

One of the holes Jared patched failed, which Sam kindly repaired for us.

 Kelp me and Sam collected from the beach, we are exploring the option of using it for fish food.

Bed woes

After discovering a leak in our water tank, I decided to turn off the pump overnight in case it ran dry.

What we discovered in the morning after it rained:

Turns out it's a really bad idea to turn off the pump! All the plants were really limp. Thankfully most of the plants recovered, except for the basil.

While the tank is empty, here's a photo of the pump:

We fixed the leak and filled it back up, then replaced the siphon pipe which also had a leak. Now the system is running very smoothly!

Next we have to cycle the system to introduce the bacteria into the system. We will do this without the fish to start with, to ensure the system is stable before they are introduced.

To cycle the system, we add ammonia daily while constantly monitoring the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels. As the bacteria grow, the ammonia levels will drop, and the nitrate levels will rise. At that point, we can introduce the fish and we will have a fully functioning system!