The Venn diagram of simile, metaphor and reality

Observation & Action

So, I bought three goldfish yesterday for Fish Day after having whopping two days of acceptable numbers. To recount today's events, I'm going to write this entry a little differently than the others.  Here we go!

The water and fish before the changes

Morning Observations & Reaction

1. Cloudy water
2. Two outer drains were clogged with grow media; unclogged them and removed a riser on each, which would have the effect of lowering the water level in the growbed.
3. Opened the flow of the submersible tank to 100%.
4. Added the rest of the pepper seeds to the growbed.
5. The fish do swim, but not a lot. The conditions may not be ideal for them as of yet. I fed the fish this yesterday and this morning. They mainly hang out towards the bottom of the tank.
6. I siphoned some of the extra food from the tank that the fish didn't eat in order to forestall a rise in ammonia through food decay.
7. Since I really don't have any plants to use the nitrates since the seeds withered (probably due to the drastic pH changes, I am going to make a trip to the Farmer's Market and buy some plants to pre-stock the growbed. It will be important in order to keep the water clean for the fish.
8. I also plan to place some of the lemongrass seeds into one of the corners of the growbed. I'm going to at least propagate them here, so that I can put them into a pot later on. I understand that they help repel mosquitos. That will be helpful for the backyard.

The Morning Numbers

Date	GH	KH	pH	NO2	NO3	NH3/NH4	Temp °C
14-May (morning)	180	80	7.0	1.0	0.5	0.5	24°

This Afternoon's Events

I had a great time at the Covington Farmer's Market for the short time that I was there. It was especially cold and damp this morning with temperatures in the low to mid 50's (10-13°C), which was quite a shift from yesterday when it was in the 70's (21-23°C). I bought some spearmint, parsley and rosemary plants from one of the vendors. She certainly knew her plants well. I'll update this later with her card info. I also bought a lavender plant and a banana tree from a different vendor (not for aquaponics purposes). I will definitely come back to the Market next week.

So, I arrived back home, took care of the dogs, and then commenced see how I can stock these plants into the growbed. I thought the way to do this would be simple and have no negative consequences. Unfortunately, doing so met with some problems.

I started the rehoming process with the rosemary plant by bumping the bottom of its thin, plastic propagation pot, and then breaking apart the soil so that its roots were exposed. From there, I ran water over them while lightly massaging the roots in order to remove any soil. The next step was to put them into the growbed. Well, I either didn't do this thoroughly enough, or there was some debris from the growbed that make its way into the tank and further clouded up the water.

My soil-grown plants and fishes' new oxygen dealer

As a result, I freaked out. I was thinking that I was going to kill these poor fish after I took them away from their relatively posh lives at Planet Pet (a pet store across the Licking River in Newport, KY). Since I needed to get plants setup anyway, I continued the task of breaking my purchases free from their soil and into aquaponic system's substrate. I needed to find a way to clear up this water, but without starting over.

It's really a little bit of a pain in the ass to actually put existing plants in there, along with their long root structure, into the bed. It was even more difficult when changing the drain risers. As you may have deducted, the thing with collections of round items in a bowl, is that as soon as you dig a little hole, all of their little friends want to fill-in the gap.

Fortunately, I found a 5" (127mm) length of 3" (76mm) PVC pipe to help me solve the problem. Placing the pipe down into the substrate, and then digging out the balls, I was able to place the plant at the desired depth, put the balls back, and then lift the PVC back out of the substrate.

I came up with the solution when thinking about how they built the Hoover Dam. Before they could begin construction on it, they had to create a dry space tin which to work. To do so, they had to divert the entire Colorado River around the project, creating a dry bowl, until it was complete. Anyway, it worked for me.

Afternoon reaction

To summarize, I performed a 30% water change. Because I considered this an emergency situation, I used an eye dropper to administer a small, but appropriate dose of the Top Fin Tap Water Dechlorinator I had previously referenced. I probably diluted the ammonia and the bacteria population, but I wanted to clear the water so the fish could breath.

Currently, the water is very cloudy with low visibility. My most recent ammonia test, performed just a few hours ago, yielded 0.25 ppm, which is the lowest figure yet for the tank. I'm guessing that the murkiness is affecting the oxygen levels. The fish seem to be taking it in stride. They still want to eat and I have fed them. They change from hanging out at the bottom, but also hang out towards the top occasionally. During the Quarter (of the hour) Pump, they do swim and explore more than when it's off.

Afternoon Numbers

Date	GH	KH	pH	NO2	NO3	NH3/NH4	Temp °C
14-May (afternoon)	180	80	6.5	0.5	40	0.25	24°

Final Tasks

I had applied 21 drops of pH UP to the tank a few hours ago, but upon getting the latest pH figure, I added 20 more drops to it for a total of 41 drops (double the recommendation). I can't risk such a sharp drop in pH for both the fish and the plants' sake. The drop is most likely the result of the water change, so the fish, at least, are quite used to the 7-7.5 conditions. In my view, the extra is not a drastic action, but one needed to maintain the status quo.

My next tasks to work out are:

1. Determine how much to feed the fish that will keep the tank balanced while not starving them to death. They seem to like it better if a pulverize the food before dropping it into the tank.
2. Track the progress of the plants.
3. Put the lemongrass seeds in as I previously mentioned.
4. Find a way to further clear up the water in a safe way that keeps the system balanced.

Hopefully, I'll have a better report tomorrow. Thanks for reading.