新车间 [XinCheJian]

a comprehensive map of electronic markets in Shanghai
View 上海电子市场 in a larger map]]>

Check out the link for the step by step to build aquaponic box with Ikea Samla.

Jiu Xing Market is one of the best place to go for markets for everything except electronics. The market is over 1 million square meter with over 7000 shops and stores for all sort of building materials. Most of the shops offer customization and build to order services. For this who reads Chinese, Baidu has a great page on it. Here is a map. Lutz and I took a quick morning walks around the area. The steel section are full of small shops no bigger then 40 sqm and impressive machines.

Photos by David

Photos by Lutz

We just tested the water and it’s perfect. 7.0 in PH, no ammonia and nitrite and full of nitrate. Looking forward to seeing these grow!

Location:Huashan Road,,China

I was referred to predator mites by a few organic farmers on weibo. They look badass! They are smaller then red spider mites but literally eat them for lunch. Each adult predator mite will eats about 200 to 400 red spider mites.

The planter built a week ago is doing well on my balcony. Here is the before and after photos.

A week ago

Today

Also, 100 earth worms are added to help process the organic matter in the system. Hope they can survive with constant ebb and flow. 🙂 Finally, over 300 Chinese green, tomato, cucumbers, eggplants, and sun flowers are transplanted and we should be ready to harvest in about 4 weeks.
The basils and chives transplanted into the system are growing amazingly. ]]>

The system is still showing some sign of the young aquaponic system, a bit iron deficiency. Chelated iron has been added to improve that as well as a bag of coral skeleton is added as PH buffer. ]]>

Fix the aquarium air stone strip to the bottom of the drainage screen. Thanks to Rocket’s suggestion with his background in water processing, the air stone is mounted upside down. This is really clever one. It avoids deposit on top of the stone to make the strips last longer. Cool idea! A small piece of PVC pipe with holes is used to tell water level and fixed on to the screen with cable tie. PVC pipe is used to protect the air pipe from be squeezed by the ceramic ball. All done and ready to fill in the ceramic balls. Big ones at the bottom with 2 cm deep of small one covering the top. While filling in the nutrient solution, make sure only up to the big ones’ height and keep the small one dry. The small one is mainly used to insulate the lights and heat of the Sun from reaching the solution to prevent algae growth and heating up the solution. Transplanted some cucumbers, sun flowers, and other seedlings started in the past few weeks. Some words of advice, soak the ceramic ball in the water a few days before setting up the system so they will sink into the water. At the last picture, the big ball float to the top while I was planting the seedling.]]>

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