Fixed the collapsed side of the pond, and made sure it won't happen again. The system is up and running, and cycling again. About two thirds of the water in the system is new. No pictures yet.

At one point when I was doing homework downstairs and the pump was still turned off I was amazed to hear the siphon kicking in; the GB had filled up with rain water.

Technically it's still winter here, but it's so warm that it feels like it's spring. Many plants are already flowering, so I think I'm going to actually put some plants in the system soon!


I have plans for a second system, but this one will be much smaller. I'm thinking about leaving home in a year or so (maybe sooner), and I'd like to have AP in my room there.
I'm planning on making the pump myself, and the lights as well (led). The system will be F&D with a small autosiphon and some shrimps.

hey Thomas! good to see you

Hey Thomas :-) How's Uni going? So what will the plant/s be in the small system? Not the whacky I hope

Uni's going okay (well, at least compared to the other guys), thanks for asking

I don't know, I think I'm going to put small herbs in it. And maybe a small cannabis variety, not because I smoke but because I'm Dutch and they're cool plants.

Not sure what kind of pump I'm going to make; maybe something with pistons, or a fluidyne, or an airpump that produces bubbles to lift water, or.. Well, at least I know Mechanical Engineering is the right study for me.

Keep at it Thomas we need young crew that use their brains!

Hi Thomas
The pump project sounds fun, look forward to seeing it.
The plants are just as confused by the weather over here too..loads of fields of rapeseed in full flower!
Its very similar to last year, problem is a cold snap can see off everything that pops up early. Hopefully we don`t get the rainy season instead of summer again.. more onions from New Zealand

Hi Hex,

The pump project is on hold, too busy with uni


System update:

When I fixed the collapsed side of the growbed, I punctured the liner.. So that's why there haven't been any updates so far.
Yesterday we fixed it, and I'm fairly sure the pond doesn't leak any more. It's cycling again.

There was still a little bit of water at the bottom of the pond, and I was very surprised to find a living earthworm in it. It must've been in there for some time, and I have no idea how it got there..

The growbed has been full of stagnant water (and clay balls) for months.. Water didn't look as clear as the little bit of water in the pond and there was a small oily film on it. pH was 5 or lower, NO2 was 0 and NH3 and NO3 were at 0.1.

Now the system is cycling again, the water from the growbed made all the water in the system a milky white colour. At first I could see through it, but the longer it's been cycling the thicker it seems to get. I have no idea what's causing it..

Anyway, it's spring now, and finally the temperature's gone above 15 degrees Celsius. So I put in a couple of plants; one little tomato plant and four lettuces. I also put in some severely dehydrated basil just to see if it'd survive, and a lupin. Here's some pictures.

Welcome back Thomas! How are your grades?

The cloudy water sounds kind of scary, do you plan to exchange it out?

Hi Thomas, welcome back from uni..its been a while.
I`d be tempted to dump a good percentage of that nasty anaerobic water, especially with a ph of 5, the bacteria won`t like the vinegary taste
Your basil is looking about as healthy as mine, its pretty tough stuff so it should survive.

Thanks DD and Hex


Uuuughhhhh.....


The cloudy water is kind of strange... But I can see the bottom of the pond again so I think it's getting less cloudy now there's more dissolved oxygen. The plants don't seem to mind, but it's the bacteria that I'm worried about so I'll just monitor the pH.

Before I also had problems with acidic water, I'm starting to think that the clay balls might be the cause (either that, or our rain and tap water are very acidic).

The basil seems to be recovering, but not as quickly as the basil from the same bunch that's still soil-based. It's pretty tough stuff indeed!

in aquariums cloudy water can be caused by different bacterial blooms while the system is finding its feet.

keep the water oxygenated and add a bag of shell grit into the return path of the water.

give it a week and report back

Someone could make a living here installing AP systems that look that good! Hmmmm...

Thanks, Dan


Alright. Here we go :p

The cloudyness started disappearing from the moment the water got oxygenated by the autosyphoning, and was completely gone after a couple of days, like you said.

I didn't add any shell grit yet, so the pH is still quite low.

pH: 6,5
NH3: 0,1
NO2: 0,25
NO3: 0,5

I'm off to buy some fish now (10 or so small orfe/ide (10-15cm)), finally! Maybe they have shell grit as well.

The plants are looking just fine. One of the basil is going to flower. More pictures soon.

Yay, fish at last! We got 6 'blue' ide and 5 gold ones (all about 10cm long). They're so cool!
At first, they only stuck to the bottom of the pool, swimming around in a single school. But now they're coming up to the surface like they're supposed to, and sometimes swimming around in smaller groups. They don't seem to be scared of the pump or the syphon, but they are very scared of me though. I'm quite confident that the cats won't catch them (as they're very quick), but I'm going to finish the net asap anyway.

Bought a full kilogram of fish food in my optimism (33% protein, 5% fat), but they don't seem interested (and I think they could manage on just eating all the bugs and flies that fall in the water).


The water is much less green than it looks in the picture, but it's slightly greener than it was a couple of days ago. I hope it's not going to turn into algue soup again..

I tested the shell grit (50 grams to 5l) and it brought the pH up to 7,5. So it can't bring it up too much if I add a bunch to the return path like Steve suggested (thanks, Steve!).

yay Thomas!!