8 March EcoBattle March 8, 2017 By Greenhouse Ambassador Ambassadors, Aquaponics, Ecosystems, Experiments, Nitrogen Cycle, Soil 0 We have two trays of plants. One Gravel and one soil. In which tray do you think will do better? The aquaponics tank is not connected to the soil tray. On the other hand, the gravel tray is connected. That is very important for the plants in the gravel tray. Here is why: We have been learning about fish environments, plants, pH, nitrates, nitrites, KH, ammonia, bacteria, molecules, and macronutrients. We learned that our goldfish give off ammonia, and that is good for plants when the ammonia bacteria eats it and turns it into nitrites. Then, the nitrite eating bacteria eat the nitrites and turns into nitrates which is beneficial for the plants. The gravel and aquaponics environment produced healthy, enormous, gigantic, beautiful plants compared to the soil only environment Our main focus was on the kale in both trays. We watered, measured, and took care of them. When we first received them they were very tiny. Over time they began to grow very quickly. The gravel tray with the kale grew quicker than the soil ones. Our kale is green and it has a tint of purple. It has ruffles in the leaves and it is very similar to the mustard. It is very difficult to tell the two apart, they are both green and purple. On March 8,2017 we harvested our kale plants. We dug the kale out of its trays with forks. It was hard to dig them out , because the roots were connected. After we dug them out we measured them. We measured the roots and the plants by themselves. It was fun to watch them grow and harvest them. this has bbeen a n amazing journey. I absolutely cannot for whats next. Comments are closed.