All I can say is... wow. My tomato plants are the Bella Rosa variety. The stalks are over an inch in diameter and the none of the plants are taller than 3'. One of them has a branch that hangs over the side of the grow bed. I had to run a string to it so that the fruit wouldn't break the branch. That is the plant that produced some one pounders. Out of the 15 or so tomatoes that I have picked so far, three have been 14 oz or more. I did have to chunk some at the back fence. Big ol' holes in the sides. Not birds because I have a bird netting and these were on the inside of hoop house frame.A Bio-filter In The Sump
My nitrates were flat-lining (less than 20 ppm) and the only thing that I could point to was the city water. They said that it might have chloramine instead of chlorine. I started using rainwater only to replenish the system. Not much change.
My fish tank (through a radial filter) and my growbed both feed the sump tank. The pipes come in at the same location. My solution was to put a bio filter tank within the sump tank right where the two pipes come in. I took a plastic 35 lb kitty litter container and drilled holes one inch apart along the bottom of the container. Then I added a 12" aquarium aerator, zip tied to the bottom with the hose running out the side. I attached the filter to the inside top of one end of the sump with some zip ties through both tanks above the sump's high-water line.
For filter media I ordered some bio-balls from Amazon. In the meantime, I cut some cabinet liner into one-inch squares and dropped them in. The liner is a kind of rubberized mesh that floated. Three days later the mesh had sunk to the bottom and my nitrates were rising (almost 40 ppm). Yesterday I added the bio-balls. I'll test again at the end of the weekend.
New Plants For a New Indoor Aquaponics System
Along with the bio-balls I ordered 50 2" net cups and 100 rock-wool cubes. I started 6 lettuce and 6 cilantro rock-wool cubes. My plan is for a 4-3-4 grid on a deep-water culture. If a friend gives me a 20 gallon fish tank, it will be an aquaponics system. If I he doesn't give me the tank, it will just be a hydroponics setup with an aerator with no pump. I have another 12" aerator wand, single port air pump and a small water pump. Either way, the water will come from the outdoor aquaponics setup.
