Aquaponics - Bean density experiment - Opps

When you pack up and go fishing halfway through some science, your desire to catch protein can ruin your experiments in growing protein.

It can still be possible to draw some conclusions about the experiment.

a. The 1,2*,4,8, and 16 bean pots all seemed to grow at around the same rate. The 32 bean pot lost 3 plants when they were already quite established and healthy looking (but not as big as all the others), and also was the only pot that looked like it suffered from insect and disease attack. The others seemed fine.

b. Sometimes fishing makes bean plants go all crunchy.




*In the pot with 2 seeds, only one sprouted.



Protein:- Grow it or fish for it. All the big questions asked, but often left un-answered here at 120 Things in 20 years 

Aquaponics - Dramas and good times

All the water tried to escape again. This time the fail was in two places at once.

It seems I have sprung yet another leak in my strawberry towers. Last night at 4 am I heard the terrible gurgling sound of my powerhead trying to shift air instead of water. At least every time the water gets low its the power head and not the pump that's kicking up a fuss and sending out the alarm. I get the feeling the pump would fail if it ran dry, but the powerhead shifts so much water, it starts sucking air way before its dry. so it makes a lot of noise as early as possible to let you know something is wrong.

I think it's time to either rebuild the towers, or throw them away and move onto something that works

aquaponic

The rest of the system is growing really well, to the point where I'm starting to get crowded out of the grow house.

You cant really see it from this photo, but the tomato plant isn't just growing up, it's also growing toward the camera, and as a result taking up my head space whenever I'm sitting in their.

One of us will have to go.

And I own scissors.

Actually I've been pruning it a lot, but the latest hot weather has seen it going nuts, and seen me being to busy/air conditioned to go out and deal with it.

The other interesting thing in the garden at the moment, is that my bean density experiment is well on the way.

I haven't counted the sprouts, but it looks like there will be plenty enough to get a sample of which density produces the most beans.

I'm starting to think they would actually grow to maturity just sitting in their shallow water. It goes against everything I know about aquaponics, and oxygenated water, but who knows. I think I'll leave them in the seed raising tray, at least until they show signs of needing a better environment.



120 things in 20 years, Aquaponics - Dramas and good times

Aquaponics - Heat stress

This is a bit of a worry.

It's a 32 degree c day out there and fish tank water is already 30 c. The air temperature in the grow house is 40 c, and we get days of 46 c+ ever now and then.

My first bulk bean experimental planting cup is showing some serious signs of heat stress.

As are the coz lettuce.

The tomatoes on the other hand are loving it, and don't understand what all the fuss is about.












I'm not really sure what to do about it.

I draped some shade cloth over the grow house yesterday, but it actually made it hotter. I think if I leave an air gap it will work, but dark coloured shade cloth touching the grow house roof absorbed a lot of heat.

I think I'll try to add a frame and perhaps a water spray with a temperature probe to start the spray if it gets too hot.

I sprayed some water around and the temperature dropped by around 7 degrees, so I should be able to work something out.

Aquaponics - Bean seed density experement

As mentioned earlier I thought I'd see how densely I could plant bean seeds before they started to suffer.

To this end I've planted different numbers of bean seeds in plastic cups to be grown in my NFT tubes.

I started with six of my standard plastic drinking cups with holes drilled in the bottom to allow water to flow through. If you make some, don't forget you can drill a stack of ten at a time.

I added one, two, four, eight, sixteen, and thirty two seeds to each cup in turn.

They will grow to seedling size in my little seed raising grow house, until they are big enough that their roots will reach down to the water in my NFT tubes.

I tend to wait until the first signs of their real leaves rather than the two first leaves that the seed turns into. In previous tests where I've pulled up seedlings, I've noticed that by the time their first real leaves appear, their tap roots are well developed and reach the bottom of the cups. This seems to apply to every variety I've tested.

I guess roots are pretty important things to grow first. Plants manage for quite a while without light, but only hours without water.

With a lot of small seeds I don't bother covering them as their is a steady rain of water from the roof of my little grow house, but with the bean seeds I worry that they might dry out as they stand up much higher than the damp media, so I cover them with scoria.








I water them with fish tank water, and on this occasion I added a little seasol ( a seaweed extract plant tonic) because there are going to be a lot of seedlings and I don't want them begging for trace elements.

The fish tank water stands around an inch deep or a third of the way up the cups.

There is also a pot with my twice weekly lettuce planting, an experimental seed raising method that I'll talk about later, and also an additional cup with 20 pea seeds buried because I love peas.

I've only just done this, so it's going to be a while before I can report results.

Unfortunately this isn't going to be a case of "and here's one a made earlier".





120 Things in 20 years - Still trying to rob perfectly innocent giants of their golden egg laying livestock with Aquaponics - Bean seed density experiments in an attempt to build a better magic bean scaffolding.

Aquaponics - Stake 'n beans

I cant really see why a plant like a bean needs all the space the seed packet tells me it needs.

I figure instead of giving them some kind of string or stake to climb on, I'll just give them more beans to climb on.

With this in mind, I planted fifteen bean seeds in a single plastic NFT cup a few days ago.

Fourteen have sprung to life, and are looking good. It's still early days yet, but I suspect, with a plant like a bean, they will each find enough real estate to express their beanie selves, and will probably do alright.

That's them on the left, and right now they don't look like much, but it's either going to turn into a jungle, or some kind of rotten swamp in no time.

If it works, I doubt I'll get a harvest fourteen times as much as I would have with one plant, but I should do better than the single.

At the very least, it should be interesting.

I planted one or two in each cup in the previous batch, and unfortunately didn't count how many beans we harvested. This time didn't plant any cups with just a single bean to compare outputs with my fourteen bean cup, but that's my plan for tomorrow.

I think I'll do a test with different cups with 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and if I have enough seeds left, I'll do one with 32 bean plants all growing in the same standard, small, plastic cup. I'll measure the output from each cup, and decide which is the beast way to go.




120 Things in 20 years, bringing you free, NFT, bean science, even if you don't want it.

Aquaponics - Nitrogen fixation

I recently had a spike in nitrites that killed two fish. Actually it killed one fish. I killed and ate the other. But they both died as a result of their being too much ammonia and or nitrite in the system.

I put it down to some mistake I must have made with feeding, but it occurs to me that it might be about my peas and beans.

Nitrogen fixing legumes take nitrogen out of the atmosphere, and stick it into the soil. Most plants take nitrogen out of the soil.

I lifted one of my bean plants that's already got beans growing on it to have a loot at the roots, and remembered that in a dirt garden, you rotate crops from season to season, and plant things like beans in a bed before you plant things like tomatoes.

Tomatoes like a lot of nitrogen, and beans put the stuff in the ground. Or at least I think that's what I remember.

But this lead me to wonder if it might be my beans putting too much nutrient into my grow bed that had caused my fish to die.










I'm still at the wondering stage, so don't take this as science or anything, but according to Wikipedia's article on Nitrogen Fixation, the nitrogen goes in as ammonia.

Bad beans.

I also seem to remember that the nitrogen forms on the roots as nodules, in the form of match head sized lumpy things. But I see nothing like that on my roots.










And...

I cant remember if the nitrogen only goes into the soil once the plants die.

But...

I did have a bok choy plant and a bean plant go all rotten on me, so there could well be a connection.

I hope the fish deaths turn out to be natures fault after all.

I'll find out and get back to you if it turns out to be interesting.

Aquaponics - Spring has sprung

I love spring.

I sneeze a lot, but I still love it.

I'm in the southern hemisphere, so its spring.

I wont use the word spring in the post again.

Because I've been busy studying electronics, I find it a real relief to walk out into the grow house every so often, and smell the roses so to speak. I don't actually have roses, but I have these.

Peas

Beans

Cucumber

Tomato




spring

Strawberry (18 on that little plant so far)













and more.


Watching plants grow, and fish swim, is the cure for study.


not just Aquaponics - Spring has sprung - 120 Things in 20 years