Aquaponics - Updates 30th July

Sow new seeds yesterday, Celery and Chives I use a small plastic meshed tray. I should have use smaller pebbles sowing seeds, they mignt get washed down and not germinate.

Chillies forming after flowering and looks good. Yellowing of leaves are not that significant. Looks like that rusty nails do it job.

Tomatoes flowering and yet to form any. The plants are recovering, few tomato plant I have to remove due not doing well. I expected this and I transplant more then required, the removed plants are just surplus.

New Fern (what do they call this) coming out and they are everywhere. This is a good sign, my intention is to propagate these fern and plant them on the upper part of my perimeter wall.

Selom (water celery) above was planted from cuttings last week and now show sign of growth. I ate them raw as a salad and for own consumption they will be more then enough, these are fast grower.

Aquaponics - Seeds

Fresh seed for my grow beds, Chillies (those small super hot), Lettuce , Chinese Chives and Chinese Celery.

I normally sprinkle those seed direct onto grow beds, may try to do differently with these. Chilies I have tried, lettuce and Celery did before but nothing to be proud off, Chives is something new to me with Aquaponics.

I'm testing out various plants that can be grown, since our climate here differ from other area. Not much documented on equatorial region Aquaponics, this give me the chance to help others in this region. Some of those that successfully grow in Australia or the United States may not be able to be grown here.

I wish they have Equatorial Strawberry... :(

After that last pump incident nothing much else to do, the setup doing fine. I'm going fishing again later this afternoon and hope to get myself few more Tilapia for the tank.

Cheers.

Aquaponics - Tilapia Breeding

All of the Tilapia in my tank were bought from local aquarium shops and of the red variety. I am planning to breed them so that I do not have to get new fingerings.

Tilapia is a mouth breeder, they can be easily breed in captivity and a fast grower. This makes them ideal as a food fish. With fish in the tank and backyard breeding this is a good sustainable farming.

To breed Tilapia I need good breeder. All Tilapia from the same source is not a good choice as breeder, in-breeding will cause bad gene. It's best to get Tilapia from different shops in different location over a period of time to make them genetically far from each other.

Another option is wild Tilapia, they are the best option to ensure genetically of very different origin. However wild Tilapia, there will be risk that they might bring parasite or disease into my tank. At aquarium shop they sell solution to make sure parasite can be eliminated before introducing these wild Tilapia or any other into the tank.

What better way to get wild Tilapia then go fishing for it. Near my home there are many water catchment area, after a few years these catchment form beautiful man made lake. They are teaming with Tilapia for the picking.

So with a fishing rod in hand,, I spend slightly more then an hour at the catchment area and the result were 4 juvenile Tilapia each about 4 ~ 5 inches long. Tomorrow I'll try to catch few more. These will make good breeder with my Red Tilapia.