Things are looking up.

Yesterday was a pretty good day as far as the Awuaponic project goes. I found a new T5 strip that holds 2 bulbs at Home Depot for under $40 so that's helping the lack of light in the tank, I believe. Hopefully I'll eventually be able to get some lights for it that are the right spectrum. I think right now they have Soft White or Bright White and I want daylight or 6700K for them.


When I went to check on the drying drains, I foudn that I didn't have 1" female bushings, I had 1 to 3/4 inch reducing bushings. So I switched them out for another type of fitting whose name I can't remember right now, but this is probably a better thing because these fittings are taller so keep more water in the grow bed and they allow for the full 1" connection ( though it did take some additional drilling and caluking - the 3/4 in ch connection was tight so I had to make the hole bigger for the 1" connection).

You can't really see the down pipes inside the tank. I tried to cut them so they hide behind the black plastic rim at the top of the tank. The only place you can really see them is aove the light box:


(Sorry about the weird angle on this last shot. It was hard to get the shot at all because there's so little room between the tank/stand and the wall. )
From the back, you can see that only one pipe goes very far into the water. I think the other two just barely touch it.


In other news I managed to figure out why that cheap knock-off canister filter I originally bought wasn't working. The O-ring that seals the motor to thsomehow migrated off of the motor and was found my Levi and Josh. So I've got that back on now and it only leaks if you tip the canister. Also, it pumps much better now that I've got the stand tall enough to put the canister underneath the tank and removed all the filter media from the canister. I'm mainly just using it now to try to kill the algae with the UV bulb in the canister.

I may have to put some filter media back in because right now the flow rate's too high to expose the algae to the light for very long.

I have the XP turned off while the caulk in the grow bed dries. Hopefully the bacteria I have growing in there will survive while I wait. I had to turn it off because I've left the hose to the spray bar much longer than the hose from the intake so that it will reach the growbed. That was causing some cavitation and I didn't really want to lose/break the impeller and motor after spending so much money to buy the XP.

I also bought some fish the other day for the tank - I now have a gold Severum, 3or 4 Boesmani Rainbow fish and some other kind whose name I can't remember - they're a pretty blue-green.

So all in all a great day. I jsut hope that silicone hurries up so I can get the grow bed wet and make sure it holds water.