Today, the first grow tube went into service.

The grow tube is about 15ft long and holds 27  four inch pots. Water from tank #2 is circulated through the tube and returned to the tank.

Inside the tube is the same rock media that is used in the grow beds. Each of the four inch pots is also filled with this media. The pots rest on the rock, allowing a water depth in the pots of approximately 3/4 of an inch.

The tube is attached to the edge of the grow beds using pieces of recycled metal banding.
I ordered more fish today. They are to be here Friday. I am getting another 100 hybrid Bluegil, and 100 channel catfish.

Tank # 5 is online, finally. No fish in it though, hehe .  I did add 10 gal of the water from the bluegil tank. That should help get the grow bed cycling faster. I have 15 ft of grow tube set up and ready to mount tomorrow evening.  It consists of 4in pipe with 3 in holes drilled every 6inches apart. I will put 4in pots into the holes and run the fish water threw the tubes, just deep enough for the water to touch the bottom of the pots. I think we are going to plant strawberries in this run.

You can see the drilling process, and the 5ft section already drilled with the empty pots inserted.

Alright a lot has happened since the last post. I now have a total of 4 fish tanks and growbeds up and running. I have also learneded a few things from mistakes.  Lets just say that I added the fish too soon, and they all became chicken feed. The information on starting up a system, says it will take up to 6 weeks to cycle a tank. I waited 3 days, so I was in a hurry.  The next step was to cycle the tanks adding small amounts of ammonia. The tanks were doing fine, we added the plants. Now everything was doing just what it was supposed to. Then, the fish arrived. One hundred bluegil and one hundred catfish. I let them get accustomed to the water in the tank, mixed the water with what they came in, and then set them free. The bluegil all went to the back of the tank and stayed there. The catfish, swam around like they had always been in that tank. The next morning there were 3 dead bluegil and 1 dead catfish. OK I wrote it off to shocking their systems with the move. The bluegil wouldn't eat, but the catfish ate fine. I was really impressed with how they had taken to tank life. On the second morning, 3 more bluegil dead, and only 1 catfish. Seemed like a repeat of the morning before. I fed the fish, the catfish ate but not the bluegil. I ran all the tests I could on the tanks, everything was in the proper range. Day three, no dead bluegil, but about 20 dead catfish.  The bluegil attacked their feed, looked like piranha. The catfish just layed around on the bottom. If I tried to stir them up they just moved out of the way, and settled back to the bottom. Day 4, no dead bluegil, but the catfish were dropping like flies. The tanks are still in the given parameters, all test are good.  I split up the remaining catfish between 3 tanks. One of the tanks had gold fish in it and they were doing fine. Day 5, more dead catfish, only this time in all 3 tanks. The bluegil are doing great, eating, swimming around, but the catfish just sit there. Needless to say, by the tenth day there were no more catfish on the farm.  We called the place that sold us the catfish, to ask questions to see if there was anything I may have missed. All they could tell me was they don't warranty catfish in a tank, and they belong in a pond. We still haven't figured out what happened to them, but I moved some of the bluegil into the original catfish tank and they are doing great. There is another fish hatchery that will be making deliveries in this area on the 20th of the month.  We are going to get more catfish, and try them again. I think I will also add another 100 bluegil to the system.