This past week when it was 115°+ for two days, was too much for one of my poor chickens.   The other 3 seem to be doing quite well though.   The fish in the aquaponics pond are really growing.  Some are close to 3″ now, nearly 3x the size of what they were when I first got them.

My neighbor gave me this great old lantern and ironworks which I hung in my yard.

The hidden cucumber

The pepper plants are taking off too now!

Swiss Chard

Tomatoes

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Have a look at the plants — the tomatoes, squash, and cucumber plants are running everywhere.  In the back you can see my lettuce has gotten so big, it is going to seed.  In the middle of the growth is a cilantro plant which also has gone to seed.   I’m interested to see if anything will sprout on its own.

Heirloom Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

Cucumbers

Swiss Chard

Lettuce Going to Seed

Vines Going Everywhere

So far, I’ve only eaten lettuce and strawberries from the garden.  Soon, I expect we will have lots of tomatoes, squash and cucumbers though.  I’m looking forward to the summer harvest.

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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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Here you can get an idea of the lighting I put in for a little night time ambiance.

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You can see how dirty the rock was.

I spent several days washing rock like this.

I finally got all the rock done and back in the planter.  Once I got the cycling working, the plants were moved back in.  I hope they do ok.  They were definitely stressed.  Most of the plants were wilted.   I also got a different liquid seaweed.  This one seemed much better.  It really smells like the ocean and seaweed.

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By the time the weekend came around, there was nothing to do but empty the garden bed and drain the pond.   So, that’s what I did.  I searched all over for the leak, but found none.  The ground under the liner was also only the slightest bit damp.   This left me thinking that the water was spilling over the side when full and under the full weight forcing the one corner down.

Since it is apart, I took the opportunity to clean things up.  I put in footer blocks to support the pond and garden.  I also modified some of my electrical to make servicing in the future easier.  The last thing I’m going to do is screen my rock and try and clean it up.

I currently have my plants in a kiddie pool I picked up down the street.  I loaded a bunch of the rock and water from the garden into it this weekend.   The rest of the rock as you can see is piled up where ever there was space.

2.5 Tons of rock moved with a 5 gallon bucket

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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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Along with this main pump, I installed an emergency backup pump.  This is nothing more than a bilge pump which is used just to aerate and circulate the water in the pond in the event of a power outage.   It will run off of a 12 deep cycle battery.   To make this work, I wired in a 12v relay which is powered by a “wall wart” plug/transformer I had stored in the attic from some long lost device.   I found a deal on five of these relays with the pig tail plugs for $4.99 on Amazon.

This is how my electrical and plumbing looks:

All that is left is to buy the rock for the garden bed, then start the water cycling and add plants.   Once the water has cycled and is stable, I will add fish to the pond.   Then it will be on to finishing the rest of the backyard, some crushed granite, a tree, and that should be it.

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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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