Aquaponics in Makers Lab - We've Got FISH!

We started lettuce and spinach just over two weeks ago. We have micro-greens ordered. When we see some growth, I'll get some photos posted!

Our other big news is that last Tuesday we picked up our tilapia fish for our aquaponics set up. We started with 44 fish this year. At the moment, we've only lost one!

Last year a week into our introduction, we had lost about 10 fish. We've made improvements this time around to prevent the losses we initially had last year.

Once of the changes is that we cycled the water longer with ammonia this year. I also think the clay pellets had old bacteria still embedded. When we brought the system up, I believe that the bacteria rejuvenated and is managing to break down the ammonia better.

We also had an great Makers Lab moment, which you can see in this photo (the fish are too tiny to capture a good photo right now, but this is the day we put them in!). We were having an evaporation issue and we need to add water every day. Our aquaponics system is on the opposite side of the classroom from our sink. We were running a hose across the floor (tripping hazard), rolling and unrolling hose each day (time consuming), and when we rolled hose there almost always was water spilled across the floor.

With a little finagling, we ran the hose up through the drop tiled ceiling and across the room. Now the hose stays in place, we save time, and have a safer and cleaner Makers Lab!