新车间 [XinCheJian]

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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