Nothing dead yet (other than 15 cent goldfish)

The new tilapia are doing well.  Water temperature is hanging in the upper mid 70's and the fish are eating fine.  No fish loss so far.  Ammonia levels in control.

Here are some broccoli sprouts that are doing well.  They germinated in about 6 days and seem to be growing every day.

51 Tilapia Fingerlings

My tilapia fingerlings arrived today.  Here is a video of me unpacking the fish and adding them to my aquarium.
White Brook Tilapia was the source of my fish, and I have to say that I would highly recommend them if you are looking for fingerlings.  They are very professional.
I ordered 50 White Brook Niles.  They are a variety of sizes, but most are between 1 to 1.5 inches.  Stay tuned for the growth reports.

Baby Arugula

Here come the sprouts!  All I need now is some good parmesan.  I directly sowed some arugula and some lettuce greens into a couple of beds and the germination took about 5 days.  I have been spritzing these beds with a spray bottle to make sure that the water is getting to the seeds prior to the roots being long enough to reach the flood water.

The Expensive Setup

Here is a quick tour of my setup.  It's kinda loud with all of the water sounds, but hopefully this will work.

Red Hot Chili Pepper

These are two chili pepper plants that survived from the soil garden from last summer.  I actually planted a pepper plant the year before and some of the peppers must have dropped in the soil beds.  Last summer, they germinated and grew underneath my tomato plants and I found them in the early fall.  They transplanted into the AP beds nicely and have been healthy.

Tilapia on the way for delivery next week!

2011 in Review

This is what the greenhouse looks like today.   All of the plumbing has been operational for most of the past year.  There are two independent systems, one on each side, and I added a fingerling tank to each system.  

First, I cycled the system on the left using pure ammonia.  It worked beautifully.  Ammonia levels went way up, then nitrites followed by nitrate levels.  I put a bunch of plants from my soil garden into the beds to suck up the nitrates and everything was thriving,  until...

Without any shade, my greenhouse was taking in enourmous amounts of UV radiation, and the plants were getting nuked.  The temperature was not too bad, but the plants were cooking.  I procrastinated buying a greenhouse shade for too long, and the plants were dead.

Ultimately, I bought the shade, and found that it worked really well in making the greenhouse bearable during the summer, but during the time that lapsed, I had not introduced any fish.

 

The system on the right has goldfish now, and I am in the process of ordering tilapia for the system on the right.  The main thing that I have been struggling with, that has kept me from ordering the tilapia, is water temperature.  Most of the things I have read is that fingerlings need water temperature in the 80 degree range.  I have added a few aquarium heaters, but they are only keeping the water during the winter in the 70 degree range.  Although this may be fine, I have been in a paralysis about this.  (Anyone with some experience here, let me know your thoughts.)

This is one expensive tomato

Too bad it has a crack!

Almost a year has gone by since I have been active updating the posts here.  I have had friends and family ask whether they should give up on me.  Well, I am back with some new years resolutions to get with it.

I have made much progress that has not been documented here, not as much as I wanted, but my system is up and operational.  Over the next posts, I will go over my system and get caught back up.

Please leave a comment and let me know who is checking in.