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aquaponics

Watercress

Flora Eerschay

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Posts: 653

Location: Poland

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posted 4 years ago

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Watercress is one of the plants I really wanted to grow in a tiny setup, because it's small and healthy. But I wasted a lot of seeds before it finally started growing. Now I think it's much easier than I thought... it just needs water, not soil, but not completely still water like in a bowl.

So I used a stretched swab of gauze to put seeds in it, and attached it to the edge of the aquarium with paper clips.

It uses a 6w LED lamp, and the watercress "bed" was right under it. Some sprouts went under the glass and they were just fine.

Growing watercress and Pablo, the male guppy. Guppies are omnivorous but they prefer to eat algae, so they don't really bite at the roots.

When the plants got bigger, I moved them to aquarium with baby guppies, in which water level is slightly lower.

Tiny guppy is 13 days old today!

One plant fell out of the gauze and into some floating plants - moss, duckweed, water fern, and maybe something else.

It's fine there too, so I think they can just grow like that.

Recently I saw watercress in a regular pot, for sale along with some herbs, but mine just died in soil... so I'm happy that it grows well in the water.

My book arts: https://biblioarty.wordpress.com/

Phil Grady

Posts: 182

Location: mid Ohio, 40.318626 -83.766931

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posted 4 years ago

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i hadnt thought about doing that, it'd a pretty good idea.
I placed mine in an old water bottle that is floating on top the tank. i't gets gently agitated by the aerator and water return.
i can see several sprouting roots after a couple of days. once there bigger I'll just empty them into the tank.

Flora Eerschay

gardener

Posts: 653

Location: Poland

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posted 4 years ago

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I'm glad you liked my first dailyish! I feel motivated!
About the watercress: maybe I'm not great at growing it efficiently, but I'm quite good at beautifying it. So my newest idea was to place the watercress seedlings on top of some wooden chopsticks, tied together with a cotton thread. I've been pondering about using green wood in a pond (or aquarium, in this case) and there is a lot of issues, but chopsticks are not so "green" anymore... and they shouldn't contain any toxins either.
Now I know the distance between my filter's cable and the fountain pipe. It's four chopsticks!

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My book arts: https://biblioarty.wordpress.com/

Matthew Nistico

pollinator

Posts: 769

Location: Clemson, SC ("new" Zone 8a)

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posted 4 years ago

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Very exciting! I know very little about watercress to contribute - except that it's yummy! - but hope to learn a a lot. Small scale hydroponics with watercress sounds very promising. I did see a small scale, DIY aquaponics set up once using flats of watercress over tanks growing bait minnows. I did not get e chance to spy whether or what kind of medium was used in their flats to anchor the roots, but I suspect they were using something.

Blazing trails in disabled homesteading

Chris McCullough

Posts: 59

posted 4 years ago

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SUPER COOL!

Has anyone tried floating vegetable gardens???

Leslie Russell

Posts: 95

Location: Hot, humid, sometimes hurricane drenched west central Florida

posted 4 years ago

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You've encouraged me. I eat watercress every day so I tried to grow it myself and went through one packet of seeds and gave up. Which is what I do. I'll give it another go and stick with it this time. I don't have any kind of aquaponic setup but I can rig something up with what I have around here. Thanks so much for talking about my favorite thing to eat!

Scottie Chapman

Posts: 9

posted 4 years ago

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Flora Eerschay wrote:Watercress is one of the plants I really wanted to grow in a tiny setup, because it's small and healthy. But I wasted a lot of seeds before it finally started growing. Now I think it's much easier than I thought... it just needs water, not soil, but not completely still water like in a bowl.

So I used a stretched swab of gauze to put seeds in it, and attached it to the edge of the aquarium with paper clips.

It uses a 6w LED lamp, and the watercress "bed" was right under it. Some sprouts went under the glass and they were just fine.

Growing watercress and Pablo, the male guppy. Guppies are omnivorous but they prefer to eat algae, so they don't really bite at the roots.

When the plants got bigger, I moved them to aquarium with baby guppies, in which water level is slightly lower.

Tiny guppy is 13 days old today!

One plant fell out of the gauze and into some floating plants - moss, duckweed, water fern, and maybe something else.

It's fine there too, so I think they can just grow like that.

Recently I saw watercress in a regular pot, for sale along with some herbs, but mine just died in soil... so I'm happy that it grows well in the water.

Pu Hoi

Posts: 1

posted 4 years ago

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Does it have to be moving water or can it be grown in stil water also?

Kim Huse

Posts: 195

posted 4 years ago

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Pu Hoi wrote:Does it have to be moving water or can it be grown in stil water also?

has to be moving water; cress will not grow in still water

Kim Huse

Posts: 195

posted 4 years ago

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ok, now I want to get one of those table top fountains and cress seeds...

Mick Berry

Posts: 3

posted 4 years ago

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Did you know there's also a variety of cress that doesn't need to grow in water?
We call it garden cress, the French call it cresson, and it grows in all sorts of soil. Easiest plant to grow and is so easy that it's a kids favorite! Same taste as water cress but a lot less troublesome.

Flora Eerschay

gardener

Posts: 653

Location: Poland

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posted 4 years ago

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Some water movement is necessary but it doesn't have to move a lot. I started the seeds in a closed container filled with water, no filter and not much movement, and they sprouted just fine. Now in the aquarium the filter is on for about an hour, not more. So the movement is really minimal. However, they didn't want to grow in soil at all. I think it's more important that it's water, not soil, and relatively clean but with some nutrients (which guppies and snails provide in my setup).

My book arts: https://biblioarty.wordpress.com/

Hans Quistorff

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Posts: 1956

Location: Longbranch, WA Mild wet winter dry climate change now hot summer

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posted 4 years ago

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My observation it is mostly the need for air in the water. Really large amounts of water cress can be produced with a pond that has a pump to circulate the water to a fall over stones or a flowing stream. Cress in soil tends to have to bolt to seed quickly before it gets to dry. over time the seeds probably select for the environment.

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anna strongtower

Posts: 2

posted 4 years ago

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I tried transplant watercress into tub of water and thy died. Then I planed one creating a steam pumped from pond to stream back into pond to grow my cress. Had gotten it built. Thanks for the fish tank idea. That will work in house through out my winter months.

Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 9946

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

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posted 4 years ago

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I have watercress growing in my pond in my polytunnel (hoophouse). I think I sowed it in a pot about 4 years ago and it keeps growing back. No pump, no oxygenating plants, no pot now, no attention. We're pretty cool here, but it does get hot in the tunnel in summer (22 hours of daylight!) Especially if I forget to open the doors. Trouble is we don't really like it! I may make soup someday perhaps....

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