Herbs Sprouting

One of the fun things about the aquaponics garden is that you get to see some different aspects of plant life that you don't normally get to watch.

For example, all of the basil seeds have puffed up with a white casing around their originally black seeds.


And the cress seeds in a rockwool pot have already started to put out some roots! They've only been in there for about a day and a half now, so this is very exciting. I suspect the germination time will be much shorter for these seeds than in the ground partly because of the constant water supply and partly because the water is heated (ideally it won't fall below about 67 degrees).



Yesterday afternoon I set up a duckweed trough by sawing a plastic 55gal drum in half. Tilapia are mostly vegetarian and supposedly love duckweed. There is also the benefit that duckweed is still alive when you feed it to the fish so it doesn't rot and gunk up the tank if it doesn't get eaten. So I bought some off of eBay a couple weeks ago and have been nursing it back to health in a bowl inside. Now it is out in the trough along with some Fish/Kelp emulsion and some E.B. Stone Tomato and Vegetable Food. I'm hoping I can grow duckweed quickly enough to be a sustainable food source for my Tilapia.