Restocking
The last entry was regarding the system failure and major fish kill. It took a few days to get all of the dead fish out of the tank but I did it. Very depressing to do. However, this setback gave me some time to think on the layout and fix/tweak a few things. It does matter the layer of water that is in the plant grow bed and how soon the gravity siphons work to remove the water. The books give a nice graph but I truly did not understand it until I misdid it. So, I fixed the gravity siphon system, redid the fishtank intake plumbing and changed the timer system for more time on to recirculate the water and try and manage the solid fish waste. I even found 4 fish swimming in the tank--so, survivors.
I had had issues with the vertical grow towers and returning water not always returning to fish tank but overflowing and spilling on GH floor. I added a second gravity drain to each tower and system running great.
September 20, I was able to buy fish from supplier. I bought a small amount as I wanted to make sure all would be going well. I bought bluegill, shellcracker and catfish. These guys were all small. I did suffer fish loss, a bit more than I expected. However, stocking a tank does stress a fish out and losses are expected.
Outside temperatures were starting to get lower, so time to put heaters in fish tank. Plants were showing nitrogen deficiencies however, with fish in system, the plants are starting to look better.
November 1, I decided to bust the bank and stock the tank. I bought 200 bluegill, 25 catfish and 4 pounds of minnows. WOW. The fish tank looked pretty amazing with that many fish. The tomato plants were overgrowing everywhere. I had read about pruning suckers off but I could not tell what was what. I checked and remembered I planted indeterminate tomato plants--these grow like vines and only produce flowers on new growth. I had decided to let them grow and see what happens. However, even though I have plenty of fish in system, their waste was not enough nutrients for the plants. The tomatoes were growing profusely and flowering but very few fruit. So, I started to slowly cut back the plants and see how the chemical readings were. It is a fine balance to determine plant mass versus fish/fish wastes. The books give you general guidelines for raising but honestly it is a trial and error because small fish don't generate as much waste as big fish and it does take time for small fish to grow into big fish.
November saw cooler outside temps and heaters not working as efficiently as I had hoped. I could figure out why as they had worked pretty decently before. Then a DUH moment--I went from about 300 gallons of water to 450 gallons of water. The heaters could not heat that much extra. I found a new heater and ordered it/installed it. The water temperature got up to about 70 degrees, over 20 degrees higher than outside temperature. And with the proper water temp, the GH air temperature is consistently about 10+ degrees higher than outside air temperature. Perfect arrangement here. I even found caterpillars eating on the tomato plants in the GH. I let them be as I was curious to what type of butterfly they would become and would they pollinate the flowers. I even caught some of the ladybugs from the swarm that annually shows up and put them in the GH to see if they would breed/live in there. Maybe they would help with pollination. Cannot tell if so and haven't seen but one so far.
December 12 saw a catastrophe as one of the vertical tower water supply tubing was properly in for the morning check but some time during the day, came out of the tower and water was being released onto the GH floor. When I did the afternoon check, I discovered water loss, over 2/3 of water gone. Poor fish swimming in about 4 inches of water. It took me a few days to rectify the is problem as I had discovered you cannot add too much water all in one day. Binding the chloromine isnt the problem as much as making sure the temperature isnt too drastic of a change. Tap water is about 55 degrees F and it does take time for the heater to heat the water. However, I got the water levels back up and fish loss did not occur or if it did, the survivors ate them.
I am still in the process of cutting the tomato plants back as still not getting much fruit if any. I also realized that if too overgrown, then the recirculating air does not really recirculate as too much plant growth so water stays on plants and thus, powdery mildew does too. So, plants are properly trimmed back and I shall await and see how this goes. Still trying to figure the proper plant mass to fish waste ratio. However, strawberry plants are flowering, some sort of leafy green is growing, a squash plant is deciding whether to grow or die. Okra does not like the humidity so while the plant is growing and flowering, the fruit gets moldy and dies. And the asparagus is not visible, so not sure whether it is undergoing its seasoning dying or it just died.
December 31 saw me scrubbing all 42 windows. Some sort of dirt/mold combo on the roof windows on the eastern side of the GH--not plant sap as it is a maple tree on that side. It was quite a chore to clean the roof windows, but wow, what a difference. I am betting that a lot of sunlight was deflected due to the dirt. And being a solar heated GH, I should see better warmth inside the GH.
One note, polycarbonate windows were rated better overall than acrylic. however, I think I might have done better with acrylic. I have 41 windows that are polycarbonate and only one acrylic window--the dutch door. Acrylic windows are a flat surface. The polycarbonate ones have little grooves in them so were difficult to clean. Secondly, polycarbonate is not as sturdy as acrylic. I worried about putting too much pressure on them to clean them, but I wanted to get the grooves cleaned as well. I think a discussion of maintenance of the window types might have been included in the books I read. I wonder if polycarbonate gets dirtier than acrylic? That might have been a game changer there as trying to clean the roof windows is rather tricky. I might have gone acrylic there and done polycarbonate on the sides or maybe all acrylic.
Overall, system is running nicely, fish are getting bigger. And a surprise is that I have seen some small fish, too small if gotten on the November 1 stocking, so perhaps I am breeding fish as well? That would be neat. I have decided to raise only catfish and bluegill. Next challenge is how to catch the one fish I want to catch. I have a catfish that is ready to be caught and eaten, but I only want to hook him and not any others. And netting? If you haven't tried to net a fish and keep it in the net, you do not know what you would be suggesting. Netting is not easy--the suckers try to 'fly' out of the net.
Another thing I have to learn is what type of plants will grow/fruit in a high humidity environment in my GH. I thought this whole endeavor would be easy if I just read books on it all, however, it seems the school of hard knocks requires more than book learning.
I had had issues with the vertical grow towers and returning water not always returning to fish tank but overflowing and spilling on GH floor. I added a second gravity drain to each tower and system running great.
September 20, I was able to buy fish from supplier. I bought a small amount as I wanted to make sure all would be going well. I bought bluegill, shellcracker and catfish. These guys were all small. I did suffer fish loss, a bit more than I expected. However, stocking a tank does stress a fish out and losses are expected.
Outside temperatures were starting to get lower, so time to put heaters in fish tank. Plants were showing nitrogen deficiencies however, with fish in system, the plants are starting to look better.
The tomato jungle
November saw cooler outside temps and heaters not working as efficiently as I had hoped. I could figure out why as they had worked pretty decently before. Then a DUH moment--I went from about 300 gallons of water to 450 gallons of water. The heaters could not heat that much extra. I found a new heater and ordered it/installed it. The water temperature got up to about 70 degrees, over 20 degrees higher than outside temperature. And with the proper water temp, the GH air temperature is consistently about 10+ degrees higher than outside air temperature. Perfect arrangement here. I even found caterpillars eating on the tomato plants in the GH. I let them be as I was curious to what type of butterfly they would become and would they pollinate the flowers. I even caught some of the ladybugs from the swarm that annually shows up and put them in the GH to see if they would breed/live in there. Maybe they would help with pollination. Cannot tell if so and haven't seen but one so far.
December 12 saw a catastrophe as one of the vertical tower water supply tubing was properly in for the morning check but some time during the day, came out of the tower and water was being released onto the GH floor. When I did the afternoon check, I discovered water loss, over 2/3 of water gone. Poor fish swimming in about 4 inches of water. It took me a few days to rectify the is problem as I had discovered you cannot add too much water all in one day. Binding the chloromine isnt the problem as much as making sure the temperature isnt too drastic of a change. Tap water is about 55 degrees F and it does take time for the heater to heat the water. However, I got the water levels back up and fish loss did not occur or if it did, the survivors ate them.
I am still in the process of cutting the tomato plants back as still not getting much fruit if any. I also realized that if too overgrown, then the recirculating air does not really recirculate as too much plant growth so water stays on plants and thus, powdery mildew does too. So, plants are properly trimmed back and I shall await and see how this goes. Still trying to figure the proper plant mass to fish waste ratio. However, strawberry plants are flowering, some sort of leafy green is growing, a squash plant is deciding whether to grow or die. Okra does not like the humidity so while the plant is growing and flowering, the fruit gets moldy and dies. And the asparagus is not visible, so not sure whether it is undergoing its seasoning dying or it just died.
December 31 saw me scrubbing all 42 windows. Some sort of dirt/mold combo on the roof windows on the eastern side of the GH--not plant sap as it is a maple tree on that side. It was quite a chore to clean the roof windows, but wow, what a difference. I am betting that a lot of sunlight was deflected due to the dirt. And being a solar heated GH, I should see better warmth inside the GH.
One note, polycarbonate windows were rated better overall than acrylic. however, I think I might have done better with acrylic. I have 41 windows that are polycarbonate and only one acrylic window--the dutch door. Acrylic windows are a flat surface. The polycarbonate ones have little grooves in them so were difficult to clean. Secondly, polycarbonate is not as sturdy as acrylic. I worried about putting too much pressure on them to clean them, but I wanted to get the grooves cleaned as well. I think a discussion of maintenance of the window types might have been included in the books I read. I wonder if polycarbonate gets dirtier than acrylic? That might have been a game changer there as trying to clean the roof windows is rather tricky. I might have gone acrylic there and done polycarbonate on the sides or maybe all acrylic.
Overall, system is running nicely, fish are getting bigger. And a surprise is that I have seen some small fish, too small if gotten on the November 1 stocking, so perhaps I am breeding fish as well? That would be neat. I have decided to raise only catfish and bluegill. Next challenge is how to catch the one fish I want to catch. I have a catfish that is ready to be caught and eaten, but I only want to hook him and not any others. And netting? If you haven't tried to net a fish and keep it in the net, you do not know what you would be suggesting. Netting is not easy--the suckers try to 'fly' out of the net.
Another thing I have to learn is what type of plants will grow/fruit in a high humidity environment in my GH. I thought this whole endeavor would be easy if I just read books on it all, however, it seems the school of hard knocks requires more than book learning.
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