There comes a time when you realize that your tilapias have grown to dinner plate size. My pond was getting very crowded. I noticed this especially during feeding time. I have about 25 tilapia in a 250 gallon tank. Another give away is that my water chemistry is always on the edge. I can’t feed […]
Filtration is probably one of the most important “life supporting” part of your aquaponics system. By now you probably already know how how to check your ammonia and nitrite concentration in your water. Well, what makes all the difference and keeps things in balance is your bio-filtration setup. I started out with not really having […]
With all the things that can go wrong and have gone wrong in the past, I have decided to automate my aquaponics system. It is currently semi-automated. By that I mean the flooding and draining of the grow bed is controlled by a programmable timer and the water temperature is controlled by a temperature controller […]
Yeah, I know – another Zucchini post. I just came back from a 10-day vacation. Right before I left I pollinated a couple of female Zucchini flowers. This is kind of sad, actually. There don’t seem to be enough bees around to do this job. If I don’t use my little makeup brush and play […]
Last week I was reminded how fragile the balance in an aquaponics system really is. I look forward to feeding the fish every morning before I leave for work. While I am out at the aquaponics system I also check on the plants, of course. It usually is a few minutes of joy and tranquility […]
Duckweed is a little wonder plant. It literally grows like weed, but it is very useful. The miniature plants float on top of the water. They remove excess minerals and nitrates, thus help to clean the water. Duckweed also happens to be very rich in proteins. Tilapia love to eat it. You can raise tilapia […]
Tilapia are tropical fish and need warmer water temperatures. Depending on where you live this is more or less of an issue. My system is located in Southern California. I started my system around October. I live on the outskirts of the Mojave Desert and it can get quite cold at night. It does sometimes […]
Here is a collection of photos of the plants that I am currently growing in my aquaponics system. I took these over the past couple of weeks. I am always amazed how quickly stuff grows. My system is not getting a whole lot of sunlight, because it is wedged in between two houses and a […]
Zucchinis are great on the BBQ. Slice them in half, score them with a knife, add some salt, pepper, paprika and garlic and put them face down on the BBQ. They go great with chicken, steak and fish. At least that is the way I like to prepare and eat them. So when I started […]
Today I took a GoPro camera with an underwater case out to my fish pond to film the feeding frenzy. Unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of light available, but the video quality is still decent. The tilapia didn’t seem to mind the camera, some actually bumped into it while they were going for the […]
