And so it begins...

 So the tank is now filled going to leave it for a while before putting fish in, blah blah you know...

 Looking at what others are doing (youtube etc) I decided to have more growing space rather than a couple of pots. This is a 99p cat litter tray from home and bargain, fits perfectly on the top of the tank, resting on the side ledge it tilts downward so water will drain from one end.

 Holes for drainage that I put in the tray.

 The sponges (12p for 5 asda smartprice) are to collect gunk and solid waste to get a little bit of bacteria which will help purify the water a bit and keep large bits from going in the tank.

 as you can see the pump is putting the water in and the water is draining out of the holes.

 I have made holes along the tube for the water to trickle out. I'm not yet sure on the flow rate needed so for now its a slow trickle if needed I can make the holes bigger.

 the tube is held in place with cable ties

 Here are mixed salad seeds that I have had in damp paper towels, they have germinated and sprouted roots so im going to put these in the main tray to start and see what happens.

 Just maximising space with the pots I have planted a couple of ready germinated lettuce seeds in the pots. Ive set up some other things since taking these pictuers like light timers pump timer etc also a couple of fans to keep some nice airflow over the growing plants. The airflow will simulate wind and encourage the plants to grow stonger stems and therefore larger plants...

 Back to the other tank I have planted the canteloupe seeds from the last post in the bio pots these will feed from the old fish water until I can move them to large containers in the conservitory.

The black pot was used for passionfuit seeds but they are going nowhere so I have planted other ready germinated lettuce seeds (from the same batch) as a control these will be grown in soil but under the same lighting as the ones in the tray. I also planned to plant lettuce seeds in soil in a window sil as another control to see if the lights are more effective but we have just had a huge snow fall and the window is white-out so thats all for now. I might post about the electronics as you must be wondering how many watts i'm using? my aim is the whole setup will be under 100 watts, when put into perspective the average computer uses about 300 watts (mine is 600) and well some old fashioned light bulbs were 100 watts so this should be quite cheap to run once going...