Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Aquaponics, Back in Action!

I spent a good chunk of my day rehabilitating my aquaponics set up. That means dumping all the gravel from last year's attempt into the garbage (this year I'll be floating styrofoam and net pots), cleaning out all the algae and grossness in the plant bed, and making sure the pump still runs (it does!). The autosiphoning feature still needs work or to be done away with completely, I haven't decided yet, but the rest of the system is looking good. I cut the polystyrene panel I bought yesterday down to size (it's perfect!) and played around with how I will lay out the net pots. I decided I need a couple more 6" pots which I can pick up in Pasadena on Thursday. So Friday or this weekend I'll plan on spending a few hours cutting out holes for all those net pots.

I'm planning on making the hydroponics system almost entirely herbs, since I will want those to grow quickly and plentifully, especially the basil for my hopefully daily caprese salad. It looks like I'll have about 60 net pots in the system, so there should be plenty of room for basil, cilantro, parsley, and whatever else I want to try! I'm really looking forward to seeing if I can get this science experiment to actually work!

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