Trail and error

 I made a couple of minor changes, as the system is now circulating water to the seedlings I added the water from the other tank so that there will be some nutrients for them. I may now be getting fish for it until after Christmas so this should hold them over til then.

 I moved the now empty tank while i still can, now tucked away in the corner, you can also see in this picture how dirty the water is this is OK and will settle down.

 I have planted out 2 small strawberry plants into the aquaponic tray just to see how they do compared to the ones in soil. I have also planted 2 of the germinated Cantaloupe seeds in the tray to see what happens.

 This is the view out of the window right next to my system, obviously no place for cantaloupe melons to grow, it got to about -10 last night!

 Trail and error... I discovered that the pump on the automatic timer was going for too long. It was set to go on for 15 minutes (minimum time with a mechanical timer) every hour for the time the lights are on (10:00 - 20:00) but I discovered that it was flooding the tray too much and for too long. I have now swapped the timers so the pump is on a digital one and now only runs for 5 minutes which is enough to fill the bottom of the tray then it drains on its own after. The expanded clay pebbles (growing medium in the tray) stay moist and retain loads of the water until the next flood cycle. I also changed a few things with the watering tube. I found that he water was coming out but running along the tube to the lowest point before dropping into the tray. This meant that only the middle was getting directly watered. I buried the tube in the pebbles so they touch the tube where the water comes out breaking the surface tension and allowing it to flow out evenly across the tray. This has caused me another problem in that the water will now travel upwards past the holes to the hanging pots. I will be devising another watering method for them...watch this space.

 One last thing I did is lower the light and create a makeshift reflector for it. Its now hanging with a bungee much closer to the plants/seedlings and can be raised when they grow. the reflector is a white tray...