I was lucky to have  a friend who helped with the landscape design and more so, the labor!

This is what it looks like now that it is all done

The fish have been in the tank for 2 days now.

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I’ve been cycling my system for 10 days more than what is on the chart below.  I’ve been surprised that it never really cycled — no real rise in Nitrite and Nitrate never increased at all.

Here is what it looked like when I opened the shipping box.

It’s hard to tell, but there are 50 or more in that bag.  They are about 1″ long right now.

Here is a clearer shot once I removed the outer bag.

Floating the bag in the aquaponics tank

Have a look at how the heirloom tomatoes and lettuce are doing.

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This picture is of my first siphon setup.  I’ve since changed my bell from  2″ to 3″.  With a 3″ bell, I no longer needed the cap on the filter, as the bell fills the 4″ filter completely, not allowing any media to enter.   I also added a 2″ to 1″ reducer on my stand pipe which greatly improved the starting and stopping of the siphon.  Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of the new siphon.

When I first started testing it was easy to set up and worked great.  Once I added my rock, it all changed.  I had to start over, adding additional holes to the bottom of my bell and filter to allow enough water flow.  Adequate flow is needed to insure the siphon will not break prematurely and leave too much water in the grow bed.    It is now set so that it will fill to about an inch below the top of the rocks, and drain leaving between 1 and 2 inches of water in the grow bed.

I ended up using 3/4” Arizona river rock as my grow bed media.  With the rock in and the system cycling properly, today was the day to go down to the nursery and pick up some plants.

• Red Romain Lettuce
• Swiss Chard
• Zuccini Squash
• Armenian Cucumbers
• Green Bell Pepers
• Yellow Bell Peppers
• Strawberries
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Heirloom Tomatoes
• Sweet Basil
• Cilantro
• Anaheim Peppers

The only things I wanted, but didn’t find were carrots and broccoli.  Maybe next time.

Over the next couple of weeks I expect the whole system to cycle, then it will be ready to add fish.   For the most part all I have left is to buy the fish and the backup battery and the project is complete.

The last thing I plan to do is to finish landscaping the rest of the backyard, adding crushed red granite and some boulders; and if I can find some chicken tolerant plants, maybe I put a few of those around as well.

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You can see the pond cover/bench seat now completed and in place above.

I’ve also put grass back in the small area by my planter.   The chickens have loved the addition.  When I first put the grass in, I wondered what I was going to do about keeping it cut since I had given away our lawn mower.   This turned out to not be a problem.  The 4 chickens have kept the grass perfectly manicured.  I let them out every afternoon for a few hours.  In turn, they keep the garden bed clean of weeds and the soil gets turned everyday along with a daily grass trimming.

The girls have figured out the whole laying program.  We are averaging 3 eggs a day.  Occasionally we get 4, sometimes 2, but most days we get 3 and they are always in the next boxes now.

I hope to soon complete the entire project.   Only a little plumbing and electrical is left along with putting the gravel in the garden bed.   I’ll begin now with the rest of the yard clean up and any additional landscaping to blend it all in.
This is the bell siphon I built which is used to drain the garden bed water back into the fish pond.

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