Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Java Moss is really tough to get over here. I found it once in an aquarium store, but it's very unusual. Maybe people that live closer to...oh, say... Java... can find it more easily?

it ships very well........................

Be careful importing new species.

as long as it not a declared species you should be right. The amount of non native fish and plants we have due to the aquarium trade is unreal

should i build a solid waste filter for my system?? i have a 5gal seperate biofilter but nothing that deals with the solids,it basically just gets pumped into the ntf trays and flow around in the roots and maby find its way through back to the res, or it can get pumped into the bottom of the biofilter and get stuck in the volcanic rocks, there is some settled on the bottom of the tank.

RB, what size was your tank again?

if you're going to go go full NFT with no gravel beds with between 500 and 1000l for your fish tank then i'd say use a poly 44gal drum filled with varying grades of gravel volcanic rock as your biofilter. This will act as your solids trap as well. Trick will be to get good even flow through.

maybe you could set it up as a flood and drain biofilter as this will ensure 100% oxygenated water to all parts of it and also even water / solids distribution.

Picture a 44 gal drum (or one cut in half) with the water inlet into the top, the water "out" is a hose from the bottom that is "looped" so as to form an auto siphon. put some netting around the "outlet" then fill the base layer with largish gravel / rocks, then fill the rest of it with grades of gravel / rock with the smaller grades leading up to the larger grades.

the outlet will go to the nft trays

can you picture this?

What do you mean by:

?

So the rocks wont fall through into your outlet pipe i think is what steve meant

sport on jt, i should have said "around the inside of the drum where the outlet connects"

what i have it is a 50 or 60 gal tub, i had volcanic rocks on the bottom of it but then cause i didn't have gravel beds i thought i should make somthing that was like it and built a biofilter with a 5gal bucket i just took the volcanic rocks from the bottom of the res and put them in the bucket

sounds fine

checked on the system today one fish died, got stuck to the pump that i had turned up last night bummer...

Can you rig some kind of guard around the pump so they don't get too close?

i think i might put some gravel and rocks around them so they are like buried and then maby this will act as some kinda gravel filter as well.

so its been like 2 and a half weeks maby since ive started my system, ive been adding this stuff called stability says its elimanitets new tank syndrom, following the directions i add so much per gallon everyday to add benifical bacteria, well my ammonia levels are at 0 nitrate is around 60 ppm and nitrite is around 5ppm this is alot lower seeing as it has been over 10ppm,my ph has raised its like 7.8 is this a sign that things are working?