What is the first thing we need to do to get our newly installed aquaponics systems working beautifully? Well you might think that once you have all the essentials in – such as the tank itself, the beds, and the plants in place, its time for something fun – the fish! But, looks may be deceiving, and as much as we are itching to get some fishies, we can’t rush into this right away. The whole system will have to be finely tuned – the plants will need to be able to adequately clean the water for the fish, and use the fish detritus as food. To do this they will need to call on the help of some bacteria, which will grow deep in the gravel, to break down the fish poo. Right now, we need to let that bacteria grow, so the system has a ‘break-in’ period of a few weeks, where we just let the water cycle through the beds.
Currently the water is a deeply unappetizing colour – brown. This is from the Seasol we have put in it – it’s a seaweed concentrate that should give our plants enough nutrients to survive in the absence of the ‘real’ food that will eventually be supplied by the fish. The whole system doesn’t smell bad, it only looks a bit iffy. And the plants do seem to be responding to the Seasol – albeit they are only seedlings right now.