Heavy Rain & Strong Wind...

Two days ago, after 4 days without rain, an abnormally windy storm hit my area 4 am in the morning. I couldn't do anything to protect my plants since my soul had been completely sucked by Diablo III that day...

In the morning, I saw this:

Looks like the screen protector was pushed down by the heavy rain...

No casualties it seems... The screen wasn't damaged...

As for the plants:

Most plants were bent over by the rain and strong winds...

Okra with a 90 degrees bent... The flower buds were undamaged

Kangkong and mint were flatten down by the rain... They were standing straight before...

Whole growbed shot...

The okra flower buds take so long to bloom. I'm wondering if this is normal...
The older leaves of the mint plant are dying. It looks like the large okra leaves are blocking out most of the sunlight thus slowing the mint's growth rate.
I really need to build a greenhouse to cover my entire system soon. The surface of my growbed is covered with tiny fruits from the tree above... and now the tropical storm...

Flowering Okra

My okra plants are flowering!
I have not much to type about... so, just enjoy some pics:

Whole growbed shot...

Biggest okra leaf...

Flower buds of the okra plant in the previous pic...

Flower buds of another okra plant...

 And here are some extra random pics:

Germinating seedling of a tree on the plastic shade cloth...

Fallen debris from the tree above scattered all over the growbed among the clayballs...

Thanks for reading...

System Update - 4th May 2012

It has been 9 days since my last update...
This is a photo taken on 25th April:

I accidentally broke that kangkong... :-(

and here's a photo taken today:

That broken kangkong raised up, fell the other way, and raised up again...

Notice that I had added more clayballs into the growbed... I used Hydro-Korrels:

And now some closer pictures to show the size of the plants:

Look how big this kangkong is!

The largest okra in the growbed...

Mint leaves are two times larger than when I first bought them from the market!

I also have problems with pests:

Miner inside okra leaf

Dead leaf miner... I squished it while still inside the leaf... XD

Adult leaf miner...

Kangkong leaf eaten by a beetle

Here's the shiny little guy...

Other than bugs, I also have problems with foliage damage caused by falling fruits from the tree branches above...

These pink fruits may be tiny, but they are quite hard. When they fall from 20 feet above, they hit hard! One fell on my head once...

Finally, the fish...
After several more fish deaths, I checked the pH and it was 6.0...
Ammonia was at 0.5, Nitrite at 0... I'm not sure what is causing the tilapias to die... Could it be the pH?? But I thought tilapias are very resistant...
So I refered to an aquaponics proverb:

"When in doubt, do a water change"

and that's what I did...
I removed 100 litres of water, and added new water till the tank is almost full... I also added back the corals to buffer the pH...

Since then, no more deaths!

Tilapias awaiting food

Tilapias derping around...

Pleco eating tilapia food...

Ikan Bandaraya aka Plecotamus... Grow big so I can ride on you one day!

Thanks for reading... :-D