Week 12
Good news Steemit! My system survived the heatwave. Harvested the Rhubarb and baked pie. More snowpeas and finally the pak choi. Desperately getting time I up my nutrient game.
Surviving the heat
| Air temps > 30 °C | The world outside my micro climate |
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We are supposed to live in a temperate region with lots of rain, we didn't get rain for two weeks on top of these hot temperatures. The shading from last post is helping but I tested out some emergency solutions. Ice Ice baby.
| Goldfish probably thinking jerk, it was just getting nice | Three 10 liter bags, one degree drop |
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I want to thank my friendly neighbor who gave me space in his giant freezer to freeze these blocks. You won't get far with a couple of frozen soda bottles. Some basic physics tells me I need about 90 kg of ice to cool down my 1000l system with 5 degrees. [link is to a similar solved problem] I noticed my system heating up to 3 degrees a day so if I'm going to cool with Ice, that's what I would need every day during heatwaves.
Harvesting
| More snowpeas | something beat me to the pak choi |
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Stirfried pak choi with snowpeas
I'm a little dissapointed in the pak choi, didn't grow that big. It had really underdeveloped roots. Not sure what's going on. It's the only thing that's eaten this bad by insects so far. I refuse to use pesticides of course. It'd be hard to do with the fish anyways. I attempted my hand at fry stirring. Those peas overgrow quickly, last week they were still flowers.
Rhubarb is delicious if you turn it in a pie
This is so good, I couldn't leave you guys without the recipe. If you like a bit of tartness, you will love it. It's more of a dessert than afternoon cake. If you are going to serve it at tea time, I highly recommend chamomile tea.
Rhubarb is another thing that does well with these low nutrient levels in my aquaponics system. Only if I keep the ph below 7, above it starts to rot and lose leaves, maybe this is why I've heard people saying rhubarb doesn't do well in aquaponics.
Nutes in ppm
I didn't add anything this week except tap water. I had to add tap water because of the high evaporation rate.
This would be ideal to get an idea what my plants take up in a week, note though that my water volume is up to 20% lower from last measurement impacting concentrations.
| Element | My values | Typical hydroponic solution |
|---|---|---|
| N | 10 | 210 |
| P | 3 | 31 |
| K | 6 - 8 | 235 |
| Ca | 180 | 200 |
| Mg | 30 | 48 |
| Fe | 0.4 | 1 to 5 |
| Cu | 0 | 0.05 |
ph 6.8 coming from a high of 7.2 from adding tap water
No2 0.2 ppm one day of not feeding (because of heat) dropped this to 0.05, it's back up again. telling me I can remove about 2 ppm per day. Not feeding also dropped nitrates about 20 ppm.
NH4 0.05 ppm
This week I will look into bumping up K and P and micronutrients.
Looking out for
| I'm thinking mojitos | beetroot, juice? |
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